Meet Pedro Real | Painter, Modern Expressionist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Pedro Real and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Pedro, what are you inspired by?
I’m inspired by heroes and courageous fighters. In a way, you could call it mythology – but I don’t mean mythology like those old, centuries-ago stories. I believe in something I call “Modern Mythology”. To me, the freedom fighters, protesters, brave activists of today should be elevated to a quasi-divine state of being ; they ARE heroes and the virtues we value as a society are more present in them than in anybody else. I paint these heroes in my show, Paris 68, because I believe that it takes people who display heroic qualities like these to bring forth meaningful, long-lasting positive change into our societies. You can be a hero too, anyone can. Just stand for what you believe in and be willing to put up a fight over it. In my eyes, that makes you plenty inspiring.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?

I think what is special about my work is that I understood very early on what made it unique and special, and I managed to take it above and beyond. Through very careful development over the span of several months, and meticulous curation, I managed to highlight and augment everything that is interesting about my paintings. Originality is a big one – I say with total certainty in my heart that you haven’t seen anything quite like my stuff before, and I pride myself in that. I am in my own lane, by design. Contrast is also a big aspect of my work. The content of my paintings is very crude, very raw, very intense and violent. But my technique is very analogous to that in nature, in the sense of it being very striking and frankly, beautiful. I had one of my collectors look at one of my paintings, and he affirmed that whilst the scene was one of confrontation, he simply couldn’t look away, because the way I applied paint to the canvas “looked a bit like flowers” – that is a comment I still think about. It definitely wasn’t easy, but I genuinely don’t want this to demotivate anyone who feels urged to create after reading this to do anything else. I think all humans have that innate ability to create something singular in the field of the arts if they are willing to go through the process.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Venice Beach, Angels Flight Railway in downtown LA to The MOCA, Olvera Street, the ultimate cliche of Canter’s.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I want to give a shoutout to my dad for passing onto me his discipline and a work ethic. It’s something that i attribute to him. My grandfather had a small, familiar cattle farm in southmost Brazil, in which my father worked. The workload was overwhelming and the work wasn’t easy, but at least my Grandfather was not very restrictive. If my dad wanted to party all night the night before work, my grandpa would let him – as long as he put the work in. Once, my dad told me of a day where he got home at 6am and slept for only a half hour before he had to go to the farm and work his very tiring work, and he did it anyway. He was a rebel with a work ethic, and I like to believe that I am like that too.Shoutout to my mother, who showed me I could question everything and that a convincing argument could take me very far in life. Shoutout to every rebel, activist, revolutionary and righteous fighter in the World, who continues to inspire and motivate me endlessly.

Website: www.pedroreal.art

Instagram: @pedrorealartist

Youtube: @real52art

Image Credits
Personal picture + working pictures by Yuri Félix Das Neves. All other pictures By Pedro Mamoré