BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
I was born in Mexico City in 1957 and moved to Los Angeles in 1984. I'm told that when I was just born and in one of those basinettes in the hospital, my paternal grandparents came to see me and while looking through the window into the baby ward, my grandfather said to my dad: "give him a pen, he wants to write." In a way, my grandfather was right. I needed a pen indeed, but not really to write, but to draw. One of my earliest memories of connecting with the art world (around age four or five) is of sitting in a corner in my mom's art class with a bunch of colored chalk just scribbling away. From then on, I traded the chalk for anything that I could get my hands on that could make a mark on a surface. I have filled scrapbooks with notes and ideas, have studied art history and relish every opportunity to see and learn what other artists are doing. As a teenager I started taking photographs and although I never stopped drawing or painting, the camera became a constant companion. It was with camera in hand that I started exploring a way to connect with the art movements that reverberated within me. That's the reason why the exhibits I've participated in have featured my photography and not my paintings or sculptures. For the last several years I have gravitated back to painting and sculpting as part of my artistic expression.
ARTIST'S STATEMENT
My work is informed by issues that either connect or affect us all as a society. The human condition is influenced by ever changing events and circumstances. As issues that concern me enter my consciousness, I attempt to convert their meaning into form, and my reactions to those issues into texture and color. My work results in synthesizing developments in our daily lives and morph them into visual statements that are less ephemeral and that perhaps due their permanence, will allow me to revisit them at some point in the future in order to understand them better.
I use materials that connect me to my past and that now form part of my present. I grew up in Mexico where I experienced many of the issues that my work addresses. No remembrance however insignificant it may seem, is without value. I conjure events from my formative years while striving to stay aware of my current circumstances. My work attempts to bridge the gap between memory and whatever path lies ahead.