"... a retro twist with Mexican flavor."

                                                                  -Mi Corazon

Gustavo Rimada, a lowbrow artist with a surrealist twist, was born in Torreon, Mexico in 1981 and is the youngest of 4 children.  Gustavo’s parents moved to the United States when he was just seven years old to Indio, California, which is where Gustavo was raised and currently resides and proudly calls home.
 

                  Gusatvo has been drawing ever since he can remember.  He took numerous art classes while growing up and attended The Art Institute in Santa Monica and studied computer animation, but dropped out when the 9/11 attacks happened and Gustavo felt compelled to do more with his life so he signed up for Army Boot camp and served 3 years in the Army in Alaska, which at this time his art took a back seat.  It wasn’t until 2 years after serving in the Army that Gustavo’s art really took off.  He painted and sketched all the time with the intent to become inspired and develop his art and style.  Gusatvo has been pursuing his art professionally over a year now. 

                                                            -Ink and Iron                                       -La Cholita

                  Gustavo’s art is heavily influenced by his Mexican heritage, tattoo art, and art from the streets.  His style of work mirrors his proud Mexican heritage by utilizing a mixture of tattoo style design, Mexican Folk art, 50’s pin-up, pin striping, and Cholita style girls.  Some of the artists he claims to have influenced him include:  Robert Williams, Sylvia Ji, Alberto Vargas and Gil Elvgren, just to name a few.  His inspiration for his art comes from many different sources but really emphasizes that he gets inspired by listening to a lot of hip hop music and the messages behind “strong emotional lyrics about hard work and passion”.   His choice of media in his artwork include: acrylic, gouche (Opaque watercolors and the technique of painting with such colors using white to make tints), oils and sometimes graphite. 

                  Gustavo’s art has not only been displayed in museums and art shows, but his art is available for purchase on my different websites.  In my opinion, Gustavo’s strong use of color, Mexican culture with the “day of the dead” vibe, and rasquache style has made his work extremely popular and desired by many.  

                                         -Clown Face