Artist Statement

I think of myself as a local artist with a social justice agenda. Like so many Puerto Rican artists, I believe art and artists have duties that go beyond expressing pure aesthetics or concepts. The recent words of Liu Xiaodong sum it up perfectly: "For me, the content of art is very important. Today's artists are more and more detached from society, but for me it is very different. I feel that being an artist, being able to reflect the society you are living in and your personal experience, is very important."  It is not surprising, then, that some my artistic influences are Alice Neel, Joaquin Sorolla and the work of the many socially-conscious Puerto Rican artists I met in my youth. 

I am a neo-expressionist. Light and chromatic saturation help me portray emotional environments. If the tropical light of my native Puerto Rico taught me not to be afraid of color, the light in California has shown me a near-infinite range of moods. This is why I continue to live in the west.

I have always preferred painting from life in order to better convey light and the freshness of feelings and perceptions, although I occasionally paint from memory and references. I don’t make preliminary drawings and work mostly wet-on-wet, preferring safer ways of handling the toxic pigments with which I work.