Daniel De Souza

Childhood memories have a special tincture.  They are almost literally colored by inexperience, by our having yet to acquire much in the way of patterns of processing life.  The digital art of Daniel De Souza touches us with just that sort of saturated mnemonic encoding.  That he uses this aesthetic to inform portraiture of children couldn’t be more fitting.  The birth of his own daughter so heightened his sensitivity to children’s needs that he switched from oil painting to digital art so as to shield her from the toxins in oils.  From there, it was a small step for this former street urchin of the Brazilian favelas to want to document the plight of the current generation in that unfortunate lineage. 

De Souza is a pioneer of digital painting in Brazil, using camera and computer to capture and bring forth the innocent beauty of those to whom he relates so well.  Not surprisingly, Daniel De Souza invests much of the proceeds from his artwork in ways that contributes to the betterment of his subjects.