Luis Bitencourt lives and works in Washington, D.C. and in Ipanema, Rio de Janeiro. Originally a Mathematician and a Doctor in Political Science, Luis likes to say that he would rather be a painter. Self-taught, he has been drawing and painting in oil and acrylic for over 40 years. His style is bold and colorful; mixing his Brazilian heritage and American influences and ranging from figurative to abstract.
 

As he says, Luis paints for pleasure: “I was perhaps five years old when my love for painting began. I found a box of oil painting tubes in a storage room and used up all of them to paint my cherished tricycle. It was, of course, a disaster particularly considering that oil paint does not dry quickly and I had then decided to ride somewhere on my freshly painted multicolored tricycle. I am sure that Mom was not very happy with the artistic appearance of my clothes and of the tricycle. But, I am almost certain it would have been considered a masterpiece by many modern artists.”
 

Despite that unfortunate beginning Luis has never stopped painting and drawing on anything he can get his hands on, from napkins and notebooks to canvases.

“Painting makes me happy,” he explains.

The style is certainly not academic. And it is not completely abstract, at least with respect to most of his works. But there seems to be a consistency throughout many years that reveals his aspiration to evoke emotions from the shapes and colors.