In late April, Francisco Souto walked into a Venice, Italy, palazzo to see his exquisitely crafted colored pencil drawings inside glowing, sculptural frames in the European Cultural Centre’s biennial contemporary art exhibition. With that display, Souto became the first Nebraska artist to show at the Venice Biennale, the world’s largest and most prestigious art exhibition held every two years in the city of canals. The Willa Cather Professor of Art and Director of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln School of Art, Art History and Design, Souto is a rising star in the international art world, who won the 2019 Lorenzo il Magnifico Award for works on paper at the Florence Biennale.
“He’s a top-notch, world-class artist. This exhibition at the Venice Biennale proves that,” said Lincoln art collector Robert Duncan, who traveled to Italy for the biennale’s opening. Souto’s work is part of the Cultural Centre’s exhibition “Personal Structures,” which has brought together a wide range of work from more than 200 artists, photographers and sculptors from 51 countries.
A visitor examines Francisco Souto's drawings in the European Culture Centre's contemporary art exhibition at the Venice Biennale. Here is how Souto’s work is described in the exhibition catalog: “Within the compelling narrative of his new body of work titled: 'On beauty and displacement II,' Francisco Souto unveils a masterful display of his craft, where his photo-real, colored-pencil drawings tran.
