I immigrated to the United States from Ecuador in 1990, at the age of twenty-two.  I left my family and friends with two-hundred dollars in my pocket and very little English.  I got a job in a factory in Jersey City, took intensive English courses, enrolled in college, and obtained my Bachelors of Arts with a Composite Major in Fine Arts and Art History from Saint Peter’s College in 1994. 

          The years that followed I concentrated on painting and drawing, and worked as an assistant at CFM Art Gallery in SoHo.  At the time, I applied to the INS for the Green Card as a working artist, but after four years my case was finally denied for lack of national exposure in the art world.  I was too young to meet the required standards for an “alien of extraordinary ability.” 

          I went back to college, completed a Masters in Education, and worked for six years as a full-time teacher of art at John F. Kennedy Memorial High School, in Woodbridge, NJ.  For the last ten years, I also taught Art History at Saint Peter’s College in Jersey City. 

          In 2005 the Department of Immigration awarded me at last the Permanent Residency.  I became a full-time teacher to obtain my U.S. Residency.  I have a passion for education, but the artist in me needed more time to experiment and evolve.  In 2007 I resigned from my full-time teaching position at the high school.  The burning desire to paint took possession of me and I had to satisfy it.

          After my resignation, I created drawings and paintings that investigate the inner life of symbols, the complexity of composition, the power of color, and the communication of meaning.  I’ve worked at depicting my view of humanity in relation to what’s constant in time and space.