I was born in Puerto del Callao in Peru in 1970. At school, I excelled in drawing and painting, but chose to pursue the medical profession at San Martin de Porres University.}
However, my studies did not bring me joy, and so I enrolled in the drawing and painting workshops at the Lima Art Museum. That changed the course of my life. I decided to withdraw from university and continue my art studies at National Superior Autonomous School of Fine Arts. This decision disappointed my father, understandably; in Peru, the artistic career is a random one, a paved road with an uncertain destination. However, I was able to continue with my mother’s timid support. With practice and determination, I passed the Institution entrance exams in the first group of applicants and won back my father’s trust.
In the first few years of art school, the basic nature of the classes was valuable, but felt quite stifling to me. It was only the last years that we could express our own unique style more and that is when I really thrived. In my junior year at the school of Fine Arts, I was already working for the Praxis Gallery in Lima, one of the most prestigious in the city. That year, I also held my first individual exhibition, “Dreams of a Gray Dog”. The following year I graduated, and in 1999, I held my second exhibition, “What I saw on the way home” at Tamara Gallery in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
In 2000, I exhibited in San Juan and at the Museum of Modern Art in Santo Domingo. My signature style moved away from city vignettes and female nudes into more surreal subject matter.
My technique is to first draw the foundation of a piece with grease pencil, and then layer oil paints on top. Pencil drawing and oil painting perform different functions within the same composition, coexisting and complementing each other creating a visual discourse that is a distinctive characteristic of my work.
Between 2001 and 2006, I held several exhibitions, “the innocent dog” (2001), “Voluntary Nude … Involuntary Nude” (2002), “Luminous Shadows” (2003), “Not neat pages” (2004) in San Juan.”
Because frequently I visited Puerto Rico and the art community there, I decided to move there in 2008. The island culture inspired me to paint in more intense colors, and to incorporate more natural life into my paintings. It was then that I made my exhibition “Crowns of Fallen Leaves”, which presented the female figure as an emblem of the cycle of life in nature.
In 2012, I moved back to Lima in part to care for my aging mother. At the end of 2014, I married my fellow artist Brenda Kuong and in 2015, my first son was born. Three years later, my second daughter was born. I have sold to various collectors in Peru and abroad, and have been occasionally commissioned for personal and governmental portraits.