Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1963, Gustavo Souto is the son of Cuban parents, the first born in exile. His talent for the arts came at an early age and was nurtured by his parents who provided him with private tutors in drawing and painting until the age of 17.
After obtaining degrees from the Colegio San Ignacio de Loyola (1981) and the University of Pennsylvania (BA Arts, 1985), Souto began designing jewelry and in the process became a goldsmith and model-maker.
He relocated to New York City in 1990, continuing in jewelry design until 1995 when he decided to dedicate himself to painting. Souto’s current collection of paintings deals with the relationship between the object and its space.
He likes to call them “private moments of my memory.” The artist creates box interiors where inanimate objects seem to come to life in situations that our memories allow us to believe and remember.
Thus, in his paintings Souto deals and evokes feelings of loneliness, passion, inspiration, lust, awe, fear, and love. The artist explains, “I combine the scenery of the landscape, the personality of the portrait, and the timelessness of the still life to create a moment in memory. In some of them I have eliminated the object, to let the space become the object and the main character of the painting.” In all of his work the frame -antique, distraught, and scratched-is an integral part of the final piece. Souto constantly explores other themes, especially landscape, and techniques: “I believe that the worst that can happen to an artist is to start copying himself; the day I do that, the artist in me will be dead.”