The artist Gustavo Sazes has been living in Portugal since 2012. His decision was purely personal, as his parents are Portuguese.
He had to cut some ties in Brazil, especially since most of his clients were abroad.
Gustavo’s work consists of artwork for rock band albums, specifically successful bands in the Heavy Metal genre. He started around 2002 and 2003. The curious thing is that his education has no connection to his work, as he studied music, social sciences, and literature in college.
To this day, he wonders how he managed to create art for famous bands like X or Y.
The most important thing was for him to realize the synesthesia between the visual and the musical, where he was able to develop the feeling at the moment of creation, whether for a Death Metal band or a Progressive Rock band.
He says he has been very lucky to work with bands and artists of various styles, which helped him to broaden his mind to an absurd variety of styles.
As he has always been a big fan of the band Arch Enemy, he started working with them by designing the cover for the album “The Root of All Evil” and then continued for another 4 or 5 years creating other album and single covers, tons of merchandise, stage set designs, websites, and even signature model guitars by Michael Amott, the guitarist of Arch Enemy. “Being part of the band’s history was something quite surreal. Today, whenever I can, I meet them at festivals, even though I no longer work with them, they are always very kind and welcome me warmly. I really like the cover I made for the re-release of their first album, ‘Black Earth’, one of my favorite albums,” he states.
“It’s hard to choose a favorite child, right? I like and dislike many works for the least obvious reasons possible, something very personal that doesn’t have much criteria. I could mention a few for any reason that I adore, like the ones I did for Arch Enemy, Gus G., Amaranthe, James LaBrie, Morbid Angel, Cyhra, Machine Head, Cynic, etc. There are many, and whenever I make a list, I obviously leave many people 
out.”
They are quite a gift, and I am very happy to have my works with this kind of exposure. You never know which work will win a Grammy or a platinum record, right?
I have many gold records on the wall, and I don’t see them as trophies to massage my ego, but as reminders that one day my effort was worth it, of how serious and committed work can be relevant,” Gustavo continued.
The awards are not just his, as the artist himself states. He is part of a team, and he considers himself part of the machinery of a great team that plays together, starting back when someone had an idea for a riff and ending with the album on the shelf to be sold.
When I arrived in Portugal, he had this idea to exhibit his work, something he had never done in Brazil. He ended up having a space in a famous concert hall in the city of Porto, and more than 150,000 people witnessed the covers displayed for 1 month; after all, the venue is also a tourist spot, so many people saw his work.
After the exhibition in Portugal, he received invitations to exhibit in Spain.
Working with books is a more recent activity, where he had some works published in a few books by an English publisher, and now he is negotiating to create a book solely featuring his work and 
hopes to be released in 2019.
He says he would love to work with more indie artists like “God Is An Astronaut” or “Nordic Giants”. In Metal, he still dreams of doing something with Steve Vai, the bands In Flames, Mastodon, or Dream Theater; after all, according to him, dreaming costs nothing.
Outside of his work, he greatly appreciates comics, concept art from games, and, of course, other artists in the scene.
Among Brazilians, he really likes the works of his great friend and mentor Marcelo Vasco, the fantastic illustrations of Rafael Tavares, Ivan Reis, and Mike Deodato. Among foreigners, he appreciates Mike Mignola, Niklas Sundin, Android Jones, Sergey Kolesov, Jim Lee, Gilles Beloeil, Salvador Dali, Dave McKean, and Travis Smith.
Source: www.artecondenada.com, by Luis Carlos