Gute Brandão was born in Belo-Horizonte, Brazil. His creativity was manifested at a young age with his early works in Wood, Metal and Weaving. As a self-taught artist, his works show that the creations of an untrained artist cannot be separated by quality, impact or formal beauty from the mainstream of artistic achievement.
Remove from your mind all obvious questions: What are the materials he is using to create his Art? Which is more important to him, form or content? What is beauty? Is there beauty? What are the cannons of composition? Only ready yourself to look, in order to gain some understanding of what you see. See, to understand, not to look empirically and satisfy urges to identify materials and forms.It is by far, more important to see beyond superficial constructs like a face, or a hand and see what a face or a hand may simbolize. Remove all those standards of looking, understanding, which serve to restrain the imagination and disallow learning. The walk from one object to the next will demand that you leave what you know behind and look again at your beliefs and your selves. Look to see the tranformations of material: paint, dirt, color, line, metal, wax, stone, etc. What do those tranformations represent, to you, to him?
The work reaches back into our past when as a children we saw things with a readiness and willingness to understand. This is evident in the rawness and sincerity of the Art. Gute Brandão is unafraid to take you on a ride of unprecedented dimensions from despair to the ecstasy of laughter. He creates with a freshness concerned only with expressing his feelings as a Brazilian living and coping in this country.
Laugh a lot, think a lot, and see.
Full and overflowing, rhythmic like the one that acts moved by musical spirit, Gute Brandão translates in his works a critical vision of the life of his own and that of those around him.
His art bursts forth with refreshing brilliance and energy. In fact, his work is surprisingly reminiscent of the great COBRA movement of the late forties and early fifties. Like the European Artists who began COBRA, Gute seeks to return to the wholesome sincerity and spontaneity found in children's art. Whereas COBRA members sought a retreat from the atrocities of World War II, Gute seeks a similar haven from the bewildering and often hypocritical cultural conventions of the modern world.
Also, like the work of a child, Brandao's work lacks the sour taste often found in protest or political art. Brandao takes viewers by the hand, so to speak, and pulls them through a world of uplifting, raw art, keeping them from falling into the chaotic darkness found in the depths below. Since 1990 his works have been exhibited in the broad Washington, D.C. area in both solo and group shows. He also regularly shows his works in Chicago, Paris, Brazil, New York where he lives and keeps a studio in Brooklyn.