cydr (Brazilian, b. 2002) makes digital collages and illustrations that distort photographs, video game imagery, and everyday objects into a nostalgic, uncanny language he jokingly calls “Cydrism”. Based in Curitiba, Brazil, he began making digital art in 2020 after the artist Omentejovem encouraged him, building on childhood photo manipulation and a fascination with video games such as Call of Duty and RuneScape.
cydr is color blind and has described struggling to tell certain greens from oranges. He also experiences a form of synesthesia in which he associates colors with emotions when he eats, comparing the sensation to a scene in the film Ratatouille. In a series titled New-life, to Still-life, presented on The Garden, he rendered fruit in hyper-saturated, low-poly style that reverses the muted palette of the video games he grew up playing, inspired to take up the still-life genre by the artist Scratch Williams.
