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Tadeo

Exceptionally gifted with talent, sensitivity and skill, Tadeo Zavaleta de la Barra was born in Lima August 30, 1977. Trained in fine arts, he graduated as an artist of great scope. In spite of – or perhaps because of – his youth, Tadeo is a humanist and superb aesthete. His pictorial language is authentic and sincere, always in search of new experiences with a symbolic message. A symbiosis of hyperrealism and surrealism becomes evident in his canvases, where man plays the leading role in the theater of life.

His father is one of the great masters of Peruvian painting, but Tadeo eventually left this influence to seek his own artistic voice. Once, as a child, he asked his father what is most difficult in art. Anatomy, he was told. Trying to understand, Tadeo bought a medical text on anatomy and began to draw nudes. He began to paint at the age of seven, dominating his technique and discovering that drawing and painting are indeed as complex and mysterious as the human body.

By the age of 16, Tadeo painted full time, selling his first painting to the former US ambassador to Peru in 1989. But to perfect his technique, he enrolled in the prestigious School of Fine Arts at 18. First in his class, he was invited to participate in the Quimera '99 exhibit in Mexico, where he also gave a series of conferences.

Today, Tadeo describes his work as humanistic and finds inspiration in literature, music and nature. His art is not restrictive and goes beyond the representational, since dreams open all doors to the imagination in such a way that his compositions suggest a world of interpretive possibilities. His dialogue with the attentive observer is constant. "My conceptual position is that of emphasizing human nature within its ambiguity," he says.