I’m an artist/photographer/musician/designer/surfer. I was born in Miami, Florida. When I was twelve, my mother moved us to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where I learned how to surf. I came of age on Ipanema Beach in the ’70s, an amazing time in the history of Brazilian surf and counterculture. When I was 18 years old, I moved to California for a couple of years, then landed in NY to study art at Parsons. Due to a screw up in my financial aid, I dropped out of school and got a job photo retouching for advertising, back in the days when it was done on film. This eventually morphed in to digital work and Photoshop, which I use a lot in my art.
While I was in Brazil in the ’70s, I’d seen a picture of Montauk in a surf magazine and when I found myself in NY, in 1980, I started coming to Montauk to surf. On 9/11/2001 I moved here full time. While watching the Trade Center burn, I asked myself “what would I regret if this was my last day?” The answer was that I would regret not surfing more, waking up to the sound of the ocean, surrounded by nature’s beauty.
After a long, lucrative career in advertising, the last few decades or so doing movie poster work for Miramax—practically every poster from Pulp Fiction to Aviator—I forsake the almighty dollar to concentrate on a fine art career. Now I make my living selling fine art prints, paintings and playing music. I also do some illustration and graphic design.
To see more of Dalton Portella’s work, click here.
