Antonio Carlos Sanfront’s digital paintings seem epic even though they capture intimate moments. The way light and shadow play off each other and the way figures move casually but decidedly across the picture plane romanticizes every day life, imbuing leisure and routine with an impenetrable sense of splendor. Inspired by the colonial architecture and the seascapes that characterize his native Bahia, Brazil, Sanfront paints with a nuanced familiarity, implicitly inviting his viewers to enter the landscapes and communities he depicts. Working with Corel Painter X software allows Sanfront to efficiently channel the painterly techniques of his historical predecessors, such as Van Gogh and Monet, or painting in any style as oil impasto, acrylics and Watercolor, without using physical paint, but digital colors. He also uses new brushstrokes that are specific to the virtual world and carefully builds his own compositions, manipulating digital brushes by hand, utilizing Wacom Tablet and Pen digitizing Technology. He prints his finished paintings directly onto canvas.
Sanfront, who worked as a Mechanical Engineer until 1997, studied Academic Painting in the Fine Art School at the Federal University of Bahia. He lives and works in Salvador, Bahia.
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