Roberto Custodio is a self-taught artist, a native of Sao Paulo, Brazil, where he still resides.
At an early age Roberto was interested in creating art, drawing and painting throughout his childhood. He was naturally drawn to artists such as the Dutch master Jan Van Eyck and the Italian genius, Botticelli, for whom sensual beauty was of utmost importance. Roberto never followed this early interest in art into a traditional art training, instead, later on, while continue to draw and paint, he developed an interest in fashion photography. In 1989 he started to work as an art director for a model agency in Sao Paulo, where he worked for 10 years. At that time he started to incorporate his art style into the photographs, adding new dimensions to the images through collage, watercolor pencil and India ink.
As demand increased for his art, he decided to leave the agency art directorship to begin a new direction as an illustrator for magazines like Brazilian Vogue. Becoming a full-fledged artist was the next obvious step.
Roberto's images are quite different and unique, incorporating, as he himself says, pieces of images culled from many high quality print magazines, even down to the tiniest detail, adding them together to create images that border on the surreal and dreamlike. Unlike conventional collages, Roberto always maintains the correct proportion of the figure and figure/landscape/setting, and then with India ink and watercolor pencil, adds the final touch to give uniformity to the piece.
What strikes one immediately upon viewing Roberto's visions, is the startling power of invention along with an emotional strength that envelops each work. His defining motivation to find 'Beauty' is apparent in each of these works, blending and pushing the boundaries of male/female beauty but always remaining respectful of the subject. He has always been inspired by the Hindu deities, believing quite firmly that he must have lived a previous life in India. He studies and reads and researches the pantheon of gods and goddesses, and is always conceiving of them in different moods and aspects.
His major influence, apart from Van Eyck and Botticelli, is the artist, Erte, the famous illustrator and artist from the last century’s Art Deco period, and it is there that one feels an instant kinship with Roberto's visions. As in Erte’s works, the ‘line’ and the ‘beauty’ are paramount. But the luxurious encrustations of sparkling jewels and glittering gold and silver are Roberto’s own unique sense of baroque style and imagination. We can even recognize some of these images taken from magazines, and some of these jewels, but in Roberto’s hands they are transformed into exquisite and extravagant confections.
In imagining this pantheon of Hindu deities, Roberto has brought a unique sense of respect for traditional iconography, along with a feel for modern beauty, inspired in part by his South American heritage, that once again places these beautiful Gods and Goddesses on a pedestal to be adored and loved...
Peter Louis
June 2006
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