Roberto Custodio’s Your Royal Highness
What is art exactly? In a throw-away world where material things lose their value all too soon, the Brazilian artist Roberto Custodio celebrates art as reincarnation, art as renewal of the spirit. Old, discarded magazines become the building blocks of his art, as he picks and chooses images and bits and pieces of different worlds to juxtapose a totally new reality, a fresh take on things.
As Peter Louis of R.L. Fine Arts Gallery writes: “With our avarice for sampling pieces of music, images, videos and then creating different works, our culture is continually referencing and commenting on the works of others, both past and present. Appropriation is in command!” Indeed, in this brave new world of Twitter and Facebook, shared images get hurtled around the universe and get re-invented, remade.
A ragpicker of the soul, Custodio creates a gorgeous puzzle of tiny shards from different lives and invites you into a whole new universe. His earlier work from found and discarded publications brought into existence a whole pantheon of Hindu Gods from Brahma and Shiva to Krishna and Kali. Now in his latest exhibition ‘Your Royal Highness’ he turns his attention to powerful women from queens to courtesans – and yes, even a maharani.
“Fully incorporating the art of the found or sampled image, we are constantly delighted by Roberto’s meticulous technique of cutting and repositioning the tiniest image, forcing change between signifier and signified,” says Louis.
The exhibition can be seen at R.L. Fine Arts from November 9 – December 31.
What is remarkable is the rich detailing. Worlds from Royal India to Czarist Russia are brought to life through the smallest scraps of discarded paper. They are like the shards of glass within a child’s kaleidoscope. Twirl it once, twice and you see the magic of Roberto Custodio’s genius, as these valueless shards fall into place, creating beautiful new worlds, new people with stories to tell…
More details at R.L.Fine Arts
