A self-taught painter and sculptor, Chico has currently found a base in Oakland and San Francisco in California after some years living in Singapore. And since the formative years in the Philippines, living in both metro cities of Cebu and Manila, and developing a global outlook informs much of the representational themes he explores in visual art.

Academic training in visual arts from the University of Santo Tomas led the senior Barretto to the advertising department of the former Manila Times periodical. Eventually, he built several craft-focused businesses after moving the family to Malaybalay, Bukidnon where also a career in art has made him well known for having a highly refined artistic touch in depicting indigenous and religious subject matter in various public commissions throughout the decades.

Having developed a uniquely original visual language for abstraction in recent years, Otávio revels in alternating between analog and digital processes to imprint in the final work. His work explores sculptural forms that feel at once handmade yet also familiarly machine-formed. There is a subconscious drive toward metaphysical themes of existence, time, and consciousness through the totemic shapes and monolithic forms that continue to evolve with every sketch and production.