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Beyond the walls - Graffite is not enough for Rodrigo Souto

WORDS: Adriano Espínola Filho

If you wanna be seen you've gotta grab attention. Be it with humour, seriousness, originality or irreverence. It doesn't matter. If the onlooker is intrigued, keen to know what's to come next, the game is already part won. Now imagine the person is behind the Queen of England: he naked, and she, Elizabeth, smiling sweetly as she does to the public. The blend is so very improbable, polemic and funny that it immediately makes me want to see more.

Rodrigo began his career as a graffiti artist on the streets of Sao Paulo. He took part in several events across the city, including the "Ducontra" project, in which a group of artists invaded abandoned buildings, painting and filming everything. The recorded material - which includes the relationship between the graffiti artists and the squatters living in the building - is being turned into a documentary. On the social front, Rodrigo also gave art lessons for two years to underpriveliged youngsters in Heliopolis, the second largest favela in South America, but always managed to exhibit his work in major galleries at the same time.

After this phase, Rodrigo dedicted himself to tattooing, moving to London and leaving the streets behind. "In London, it's difficult and dangerous to find walls to paint", explains the artist, who's particularly worried about the extensive CTV coverage across the city.

But that hasn't put the ex-graffitist and current tattoo artist off from producing his own work. He expresses himself through collages where sacred/religious elelments are juxtaposed with sensual/licivious images.... And it's precisely the tension between these two contrasting aspects that makes Souto's work so interesting, proving that he's talented enough to transcend the world of graffiti.

Another recurring element in Rodrigo's collages are stamps. I ask him if this is due to the fact that he's living outside Brasil, with the stamp serving as a metaphor for distance. "Yes, of course", he replies. "To be honest, I hadn't thought about it before, but I think there's a link there. I started to exchange pieces of work through the post with a teacher friend of mine, and that was when I began incorporating the stamps".

Since the artist's work no longer adorns the urban landscape, the Macondo gallery in London has stepped in and will exhibit Souto's work during the month of May. The exhibition is aptly named "A City without Walls".