Jochen Maria Bustorff
Born in Germany during World War II, Bustorff studied Fine Arts for 12 semesters in Hamburg. An indefatigable traveler, he journeyed through Brazil, China, and North Africa, always drawing, writing, and photographing, until he arrived in Portugal as a Fellow of the German Academic Exchange Service, intending to study Portuguese folk art.
In Portugal, he published the book “Diary in Alentejo” (1983), after an intense experience as a rural worker at the Estrela Vermelha Agricultural Cooperative. A close friend of José Afonso, it was in his house that he began painting, transitioning from documentary drawing to figurative painting. Only from 1985 did he dedicate himself entirely to painting, exhibiting in various European cities. He never stopped traveling, settling in Portugal in 1995. In paintings populated by a human landscape that portrays people and their way of life or suggests narratives about social and political reality in compositions with diverse elements, Bustorff’s figurative painting is sensitive to reality without imposing pamphlet readings.
