Brazilian artist Kiko Sobrino’s work cannot be classified as classic or pop culture, figurative or abstract. Instead he paints images of visual poetry, combining various media and techniques including acrylic, ink, silk screen, and computer graphics on canvas and wood. Although aspects of his work are representational, he goes beyond recognizable forms in order to convey new ideas and inspire the visual imagination of his audience.
Sobrino infuses his art with a sense of the political, referring to ecological and social matters that are very much a part of modern everyday life. Indeed, each painting reverberates with layers of meaning, as representational forms are re-contextualized in new and surprising ways. Light and compositional elements render the work particularly edgy, reflecting a tension and discontent that the artist himself experiences as he observes the world. He calls this artistic process his research, a way of decoding his daily impressions of life — impressions intended to “help people in the way they see the world... and how they see themselves.”