Personal Commentary from Madeira Desouza:
Yes, I am known as a renegade artist in Las Vegas. My opinion is that the word renegade is an apt description of me because I choose deliberately to break with and separate myself from established customs and traditions of most artists.
This choice to be different started when I was a boy. My parents sent me to a Roman Catholic Church school from grades one through twelve. I did what they all instructed me to do. Part of what I was taught were details of “unacceptable” thoughts and desires that boys all around me had. All of us boys in Catholic school were taught we must avoid intimate male-to-male touching which was deemed to be “impure.” Masturbation (touching yourself in an “impure” manner) was deemed to be a “sin” for which you would spend eternity down in Hell after you died. The nuns and priests also taught me and all my fellow male classmates that sex had to wait until we got married. We were taught absolutely nothing in Catholic school about sexual attraction which a male might feel for other males. Nothing.
Renegades are created and nurtured if they are people who feel oppressed and marginalized. The litany of Roman Catholic Church thoughts and behaviors which were forbidden propelled me away from believing in an almighty deity and being a member of any organized religion.
Over the decade and a half that I have been creating my renegade art I have developed a style and set of themes that are easily recognizable.