D. Coelho

"My name is Luiz D. Coelho, born in 1962 and I am a self-taught artist. My career began 20 years ago, when I traded in my job as a commercial designer for a life powered by my passion for my own art. It was then that I decided to frequent the more bohemian areas of the city and observe the people living there, for I wanted to live like them and feel the ambience of seduction that their lifestyles created around them. After a while, I ended up being transformed into one of these very people who had inspired the images in my paintings. <br><br> "Today, I still attempt to fill my work with the people and things that surround me: bohemians, women, samba, and <i>carnaval,</i> all images from Rio that attract and bewitch me, which I observe and combine into movements and colors on the canvas. <br><br> "For a period of my life, I lived exclusively from my artwork, which was sold through friends and painting collectives, since I am generally averse to working through galleries and shows. For a little while I frequented the Parque Lage School of Visual Arts, where I learned that an artist must forget all the roses that have already been painted and go on to paint his own rose. It was with this mentality that I returned to self-learning, making my own working process the greatest form of learning of all. Of my own choosing, I opted to take a break from painting for five years, during which time I learned another trade. Now, I am a graphic designer by day, and by night I dedicate myself to painting, since it is the night life that provides me with the distinctive characters of Rio's bohemia, whom I carry with me to the canvas. <br><br> "I classify myself as a person who lives irrespective of social and academic norms. I allow myself to be very experimental in my work in terms of subject matter, color, and design elements, which I use according to the whims of my imagination. The two greatest rewards in my work come from the immense support and inspiration I receive from my wife and the opportunity to enter a small Brazilian chapter in the volume of universal art."