About Us
Esteban Corbo has always made art. He's had several studios all over Miami, he even curated his own gallery for a time. With no family of his own he has surrounded himself with the recorded memories and ideas he's had through out the decades having fun painting. In his first year of art school he dedicated the whole year to self portraits. He said he wanted to be able to remember and paint his face without looking at it. He's painted more self portraits than his friends can stand really, but at least now he adds a naked women in the painting. We are all especially thankful he stopped painting himself naked.
Then he got into graffiti. It was the colors and the lines more than it was about defacing and the adrenaline one feels breaking the law. He would study all the locals. Secretly practicing all their styles, and color combinations. However, he did crave the rush, and a short rush it was, The first night he went out to deface... He was arrested. So he had to find another way. This led him to meet the great masters. There was so much to learn and to inspire. It was like an overwhelming flood of texture, composition, subject matter, lighting, lifestyles, characters, stories and much more than he was ready for.
Fortunately for us he never gave up, or turned scared of all the knowledge. From Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon to Rauschenberg's Mud Muse. Matisse along side Basquiat's freedom. The beautiful bright crisp lines of graffiti, combined with Braque's cubism. After some school he moved from studio to studio, and even owned and curated one of North Miami Art Walk's most interesting galleries. Smoke Gallery was his best life and that is exactly where his work belongs, in a gallery.