Happiness, Hope Inspire Miami Pop Artist

by Greg Allen, npr news, All Things Considered

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There is no artist who is better known or more popular in Miami than Romero     Britto. His huge, cartoon-like drawings tower over shopping mall entrances and grin happily from billboards. One even clambers up the side of a downtown condo building.

Britto is a Brazilian-born artist whose simple drawings of children, butterflies and flowers have decorated everything from commercial Absolut Vodka ads to a 45-foot-high pyramid in London.

And Miami developers are some of his biggest fans. You can find Britto’s work at shopping malls throughout Miami. Recently, three more of his pieces were unveiled at a shopping center downtown — a heart, a butterfly and an 11-foot dancing boy.

“Romero has managed to create contemporary masterpieces that invoke a spirit of hope,” developer John Kokinchak said at the ceremony.

The bold outlines, bright colors and simple images of Britto’s art appeal to children, public officials and art collectors alike. Britto says there’s a reason his work is so popular: It makes people happy.

“Some people in the arts, they really still believe that art is really only important if you talk about something that’s disgusting or horrible or depressing,” he says. “I think happiness is not a shallow feeling. It’s a very deep feeling.”

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