Artist PROFILE
LIFE IS A GREAT PLAY. ALL OF US HAVE DIFFERENT BEHAVIOUR MASKS AND THEY EMERGE DEPENDING ON THE OCCASION...IN THE THEATRE OF LIFE!
CLAUDIO SOUZA PINTO
“I
transform situations of everyday life with a surreal filter and create fantastic and humorous images,” says Romantic Surrealist painter Claudio Souza Pinto. He was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil in 1954. At the age of four, he began working in clay under the guidance of his uncle, the painter Bernardo Cid de Souza Pinto. He later sold his own art while studying for a degree in industrial design at Mackenzie University in Sao Paulo.
alongside execution and perspective. The paintings are layered with glazings and meticulous details that reveal Souza Pinto’s perfectionism. His paintings are joyful with exuberant colours, exquisitely balanced to create beautiful compositions. He is able to build a bridge between fantasy and reality, inviting us to disconnect from the world that surrounds us and unleash our imagination.
In 1990, a french art collector fell in love with Souza Pinto’s work and invited him to exhibit at Le Bains and the Opera in Paris. Souza Pinto lived in France for many years where he acquired solid formal training in oil painting and started his career in earnest. This contributed to a very strong European and particularly French influence in his work.
The paintings create an atmosphere of joy and happiness in a very relaxing way. They have a calming effect; one never tires of looking at them. Souza Pinto is as much a humourist as a poet, and this combination serves him well; the defining characteristics in his style are an unusual amalgam that undoubtedly translates in the universal language of art.
For the artist, life is a great play. “All of us have different behaviour masks,” he says, “and they emerge depending on the occasion...in the theatre of life!”
At first glance, his paintings are seen as a fantasy world, but the artist explains they are deeper than that: “I paint the clothes of
Painter, poet and humourist—the definition given to Claudio Souza Pinto’s style by the artistic and intellectual communities of Paris—accurately describes the Brazilian’s fine art paintings, which transform daily situations into surreal romantic and funny images. “Claudio’s paintings have a fantastic realism and a visual discussion about melancholy and love. Sadness or happiness is always present, even if in spirit,” says movie director Jacques Bral. Souza Pinto’s works are the result of very elaborate preparation. His hallmarks are detail and technical quality
the person because society only values the appearance, but they only camouflage feelings.” For Souza Pinto, the marks are more than fruits of creativity: “We all have different shades of behaviour which arise according to the occasion,” he says. Surreal, romantic and humorous, the bold use of colours and emotion captures viewers from far away and leaves them entranced. Many respected architects and art collectors have delighted in Souza Pinto’s works. The large scale of his paintings, along with the magic posed through both context and artistic quality, is truly admirable. Surreal, romantic and funny images are at the core of his work, revealing his interest in love and human happiness. Painting is silent poetry, and some dreams will happen only if spoken in a work of art. As Keats so aptly put it, “Truth is beauty.”
EXHIBITION OPENS THURSDAY, 1ST SEPTEMBER 2016 ARTIST RECEPTION TO BE HELD FRIDAY, 7TH OCTOBER 2016 THE LONGWORTH GALLERY 530 & 532 Canyon Road 505.989.4210 TheLongworthGallery.com TheLongworthGallery@gmail.com