Marcelo Daldoce started painting at 16. Three years later he dropped out of school to as he simply puts, “stay home to paint by myself.” “I always liked to draw when I was a kid, but I never really thought about pursuing it,” the artist explains. “In high school, a friend suggested I apply to a Magnet School for the arts. I guess when I actually got accepted I realized I could make a living with art.”

A year later Marcelo is applying to Núcleo de Arte. After school and a big internship Marcelo was given opportunity after another to work with ad agencies in Brazil.

A year later he left his job to work on personal projects. An artist with a day job is a lot like a super hero with a secret identity. Superman with a paintbrush. Spiderman with a canvas. But that lifestyle grew tiring for Marcelo.

“I used to work on my personal projects at night or on weekends and there was never enough time to devote,” Marcelo explains. “You have to consciously stop looking at art from the standpoint of pleasing a client, and realize that the client is yourself, your own feeling or idea.”

It was artist Jackson Pollock that influenced the artist to pursue his work in a more fluid manner that pleasing a client can’t give.

“I like to think of Jackson Pollock as the lamp in my illustration dark room,” he says. “The years I was in advertising I had to work within a client’s specific parameters, but I could still find a way to add some personal flourish.”

“When I look at Pollock’s work I feel inspired to bring the images I paint more from my soul than from my mind and technique. This is especially important for me in the process of debriefing myself from the advertising illustration mentality.”

Marcelo’s work evokes both vintage -pinup art and pop art. In the early stages, Marcelo’s goal was simple, ‘paint sensual sexual girls around typography using watercolor. He succeeded.

“I just took two things I liked and put them together as an experiment,” he tells me. “Today I’ve changed my subjects matter. I’m not really interested in painting naked girls at the moment and I don’t want to be limited to any one thing.“

Painting naked ladies can make you an enemy to women and feminists all over the world. Some could obviously see Marcelo’s work as disrespectful. But he assures this isn’t the intent.

“In Brazil there are very different ideas about what is appropriate,” he explains. “I do personally feel that I am paying “tribute” to women, to their sensuality, charm.”

And what does his original muse, his wife, Mrs. Daldoce think of his work?

“My wife likes my work,” Marcelo jokes. “And most of her friends would love to be subjects of it.”

The full interview with Marcelo Daldoce appears in the ‘Girls, Girls, Girls’ issue of Art Nouveau Magazine. Click here to purchase a copy.

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