Crystiano, Jesuys
Brazil, 1950 – 2015
There is much uncertainty surrounding the biography of the artist Jesuys Crystiano. Even the year of his birth was arbitrarily established by the court as 1950. It is likely that he grew up in Buerarema in the state of Bahia (Brazil) and that he went to school there. He probably spent his youth in Rio de Janeiro. His life and work are only documented after 2010, at which time he was living on the streets of Ilheus (Bahia). How Crystiano ended up here still remains unclear. It was then that a German hotel owner who lived in the area first caught sight of his monumental wall drawings in abandoned buildings. From then on he continuously supported and documented his artistic output and took him in until Crystiano’s death in 2015. Hundreds of coals and pencil drawings, some of them in large format, collages, objects and notebooks were produced during this period. In his drawings he invents surreal worlds which he puts on paper with a secure and dynamic trace. Airplanes, crowned vultures, fish, umbrellas, upside-down chairs and tables, as well as uprooted tree trunks are the recurring subjects of his drawings.
