Luis Barreto
(1949, El Tigrito, Venezuela) began his career in art as a teenager, studying painting, drawing and sculpture in 1968 at the Taller Libre de Arte in Anzoátegui State in eastern Venezuela.
In 1971 he moved to Ciudad Bolívar to continue his studies before starting a degree in architecture at the Central University of Venezuela from 1972 until 1974. He traveled to Milan, Italy in 1982 to study graphic design and finally settled in Caracas in 1985.
A committed painter, Barreto’s work is highly gestural and forcefully expressive, creating dynamic images that have an intense emotional charge. His abstract canvases combine violently contrasting tones and bold, geometric shapes, which are created spontaneously with the brushes he loads with acrylic paint.
Barreto has exhibited his work individually since 1976 and his long list of solo and group shows span numerous cities across Venezuela as well as exhibitions in Colombia, France, Italy and the Dominican Republic.
His work has been acquired by numerous Latin American art collections, including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Lima, the Ramírez Villamizar Modern Art Museum in Colombia, and the Americas Museum in Puerto Rico, among others.
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