Gustavo Ramos

My name is Gustavo Ramos. I'm a Brazilian-American artist specializing in portrait drawing and painting. Growing up in Brazil, I always loved making drawings based on my favorite tv shows and movies. When I moved to the United States at the age of 15, I didn't know any English and was placed in situation after situation where I had to pay very close attention to facial expressions, bodily gestures and other non-verbal cues in order to communicate. These experiences shifted my art focus from fiction to depicting real life people and their non-verbal visual nuances that help tell a story.

As a professional artist, my time is split between creating artworks for exhibitions, working with clients on portrait commissions, managing my social media and online presence, and teaching workshops.

A core belief of my practice is that a good drawing foundation is the backbone to a successful artwork of any style. Drawing to me is the most primal method of visual communication and offers the most immediacy of expression.

While in college, I came to the realization that drawing directly from life is the best way to find your artistic voice. It pushes you to dissect visual information your own unique way, instead of copying the pre-dissected information from a photograph. This is the reason why I completed several self-portrait drawings from a mirror during my artistic training.