Meet

Kiri-Una Brito Meumann

TasteBreaker

Turning photographs into monumental works on paper, one jagged edge at a time.

Read the Q&A

Kiri-Una Brito Meumann is the visual artist behind a body of work built from large-scale prints and photography, transformed into paper pieces with the physicality of sculpture — shaped by a childhood split between Brazil, Germany and Australia, and a father's eye for industrial design. After years modeling and showing work in New York, she returned to build a practice rooted in her Milan studio, cutting and straightening rolls of paper by hand until the medium became inseparable from the making. Today, her work moves between photography and paper, drawing on an instinct for contrast — sharp coastlines and soft light, the peaceful and the intense — treating each piece with the same instinct that first drew her to a jagged cliff face over the sea.

Small, colorful, textured, irregularly shaped objects are laid out on white paper towels.

Semaine What’s important to you right now?

K.B.M To surround myself with the people I love.

A man on the phone in a sparse, white room with black material draped over a wooden pallet and grey fabric pieces on the floor.

Semaine If you were an object what would you be?

K.B.M I’d like to be a jagged cliff face on an incredible coastline with an infinite view of the sea in front of me.

A rocky bay with clear turquoise water under a bright blue sky.

Semaine Describe your taste in one word?

K.B.M I can't choose just one, peaceful and intense.

Semaine Where would you like to be right now?

K.B.M I'm very happy to be where I am now, back in my studio in Milan after a pretty long summer break.

Travel

Dark doorway opening into a bright room with a long horizontal painting on a white wall and a textured floor.

"The best experience you will have with a work of art. Thanks to the architecture, the natural light, the hand-carved marble cubes covering the floors, and the way these works sit in this particular room, it's truly the best experience I've had with a work of art. Sounds cheesy but it really is."

The Monet Water Lilies Room in Chichu Art Museum

Naoshima, Japon

3449-1, Naoshima, Kagawa District, Kagawa 761-3110, Japan

" My family has a small, very simple country shack in the middle of the Mata Atlântica, the most biodiverse rainforest in Brazil. It's the most peaceful and intense place in the world. It's raw, it's green, it's nature on steroids. It's so wild that it's kind of stressful at first, but with a little time you become one with the wild, unpredictable nature and animals."

The Roça

Bahia, Brazil

A grand, horizontally striped stone building with a central rose window, ornate entrance, wide stairs, and symmetrical arched wings.

"Whenever I have friends visiting Milan I always take them here, seems morbid but I promise it is beautiful. Full of incredible tombs built individually for families in Milan, a lot built in the early 1900s. You can see so many different styles of architecture and sculpture, and if you go on a foggy winter day in Milan it's particularly special. Also lovely on a sunny day."

Cimitero Monumentale

Milan, Italy

Piazzale Cimitero Monumentale, 31, 20154 Milano MI

"Far less crowded, and when there's fog and the street lights turn on in the evening, you have the most cinematic experience of a city I think possible. Feels like you're experiencing life in the 1500s"

Venice in Winter

Venise, Italie

Venice, Italy

"Best ice cream in Milan, or maybe in the world. They change their flavors daily and make them there. It's truly the best."

Paganelli

Milan, Italy

Via Adda, 3, 20124 Milano MI

A large, lichen-covered rock stands by a lake, with snow-capped mountains, green trees, and a dirt path under a blue sky.

"This is the rock where he apparently conceived Thus Spoke Zarathustra."

The Nietzsche Rock

Silvaplana, Switzerland

Silvaplana,7513, 7513 Silvaplana, Switzerland

"If you go here at 5:30pm every day there is a sort of performance of a kinetic artwork from the 1600s. Maybe I should leave the description there and you can go see for yourself."

Church of the Gesù

Rome, Italie

Piazza del Gesù, 00186 Roma RM

A large, bright gallery with wooden floors displays modern art: a reddish-brown cracked dome, a white cone, and a yellow gravel mound. Two visitors walk through the space.

"My second favorite place to see art."

Dia Beacon

New York City, United States

3 Beekman St, Beacon, NY 12508, United States

A Saigon Vietnamese Sandwich (Banh Mi) shop with people standing outside on a city street.

"Discovered it over 12 years ago and continue to go back every time I’m in NYC, the pork bun is special, I promise."

Saigon Vietnamese Sandwich Del

New York City, United States

369 Broome St, New York, NY 10013, United States

A white room with a floor covered in dark earth, white columns, and windows.

"Permanent sculpture by Walter De Maria in the middle of SoHo. Incredible that it exists and is cared for every day, and will hopefully be forever."

The New York Earth Room

New York City, United States

141 Wooster St, New York, NY 10012, United States

A vendor sells grilled cheese from a blue cart with an umbrella on a sandy beach, with the ocean and a pink-tinged sky in the background.

" If you're on a beach in Brazil, you'll hear people walking around yelling 'queijo coalho' (pronounced 'kay-joo kwa-lyo'), a rubbery cheese grilled on charcoal on the spot, with sugar cane syrup poured on top. Best thing ever, mmmmmm."