Artist Biography
Born in La Habana, Cuba
Currently lives and works in Miami, Florida

As an artist what feeds my art making process is my interest in the human condition. Like most artists I am restless and I use the visual arts as a tool to redirect my reflections of myself and the world I inhabit. My ideas, concepts and views reflect a broad range of artistic interests from the pure visual experience to ones that question the social implications of the urban landscape, inspired by daily experiences in Miami, a city rich in its cultural diversity but at the same time very fragmented, where we all share spaces but not lives.

I have been working as a professional artist engaging kids and adults in the experience of art, for the past 12 years, using the visual arts as a vehicle to stimulate ideas, provoke thought, and confront commonly accepted attitudes. For me artists are a type of transmission belt within society, visual historians or educators of sorts. As a teaching artist, I have shared my experiences in afterschool art programs and at 2 local museums. I was an artist-in-residence at the Miami Children’s Museum, for 2 consecutive terms and since 2008 at the Miami Art Museum. I had a working studio at the Bakehouse Art Complex for several years and since 2009 I am an artist-in residency at Art Center/South Florida. In the course of my development as an artist I have done several artist residencies at Parsons School of Design and Vermont School of Design.

My interest in art began at an early age while I was in pre-school. I was born in La Habana, Cuba and immigrated to the United States with my family at the age of 8. Throughout the early years of school, I won many local and statewide awards, including the Prestigious Scholastic Art Award, founded in 1923; it is the longest-running assessment and recognition program for the visual arts among students’ grades 7-12 in the U.S. I pursued my career studying at various colleges and institutes, receiving full scholarships from Parsons School of Design, in New York, the Vermont School of Design and the Fort Lauderdale Art Institute. Finally earning my degree in Fine Arts from the University of Miami in 1982 where I also received a full scholarship. While pursuing my Masters in Fine Arts at University of South Florida, I took a sharp turn away from the creative process and decided to postpone my formal education. From 1988 to 2000 I worked and traveled extensively, held various industrial jobs; meatpacking and auto worker in Detroit, worked in a print shop in Manhattan, collected signatures to place candidates on the ballot in Birmingham and worked as a baggage handler while studying Haitian Creole in Miami. During this time I also traveled in Europe, Central America and the Caribbean learning about different cultures but most importantly my own. These diverse experiences have broadened my horizons and have had a tremendous impact on my work.
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