Who Am I
I’ve been surrounded by art since I was a young kid. I used to get inspired by my brother’s art while growing up. In fact, I used to try to copy his projects. I was into drawing airplanes and buildings and I wasn’t painting, just yet- I was only drawing.
In 7th grade, I got into a thing we call graffiti. I was attracted to the characters, more than the letters. I was really into the hands-on class projects and always took the initiative to conjure up the concept and design of the projects.
I joined my first art class during that time. Still, I was just doing drawings and mixed media art. I never painted in high school, but I got more involved in graffiti. But then, I discovered video and photography. It wasn’t until after I graduated from high school and took my first art class at a local community college, that I first discovered the world of acrylic paints. It was actually a design class that was based on precision and tightness of design.
After a semester or two, I dropped out of community college and when to the Design Institute of San Diego (DISD). It was a school for interior design. Although, I only attended that school for one year, I gained probably one of the most important, if not most useful, attribute in my style of painting: the knowledge of Color Theory. I then made my first attempt towards a full-blown piece. The painting I created was dedicated to my mom after she went into the hospital. The painting was of a boxy robot with its heart popping out like springs. I created a few more pieces after that. Some were conceptual and some were geometrical.
After being inspired, I went back to the community college to take up painting with one of the most influential professors in San Diego: Michael Schnorr. He gave me my foundation for painting. Schnorr began to notice that my skills were escalating a lot faster than the other students. So, he asked me to assist him with a few projects, which led to an on campus art show called “Rape Culture”. It was about our culture being “raped” by our society. This was where I built my characteristics in relation to conceptualism, cohesiveness, and continuity. I then took up an independent study semester with Schnorr. While doing independent studies, I began showing my work at various venues and art shows around San Diego. I also started working for an art store, where I gained most of my product knowledge.
I built a small clientele throughout San Diego. Each show I created a new series with a new style and a new statement. I always believed in changing my style or trying out new styles with every series until I felt comfortable with what I was doing.
After a few months I decided to move to San Francisco in hopes of gaining some newfound inspiration. While in SF, still working for the same art store company, Blick Art Materials, I did not do one single show nor did I attempt one single painting.
It wasn’t until I had the opportunity to work with well-known artist Doze Green (NY). It was a small internship opportunity that I did not get to finish due to some unfortunate events, but the time spent with him was probably the most uplifting turn of events in my life and with my painting. I gained so much knowledge and inspiration from so little time. I packed up and moved back to San Diego with my new outlook on life and began to paint a series about my experiences in SF. This was the most emotional series of paintings I had ever painted. It was dark, depressing, and personal. After I launched that series and got out of my “dark period”, new styles and techniques began to pour out of me like wild fire. I made it onto the cover of a local magazine called City Beat, which led to illustrating a local band’s cd cover. Ever since then, my name has been building and building within the art community.