We first learn how to draw, and then we learn how to write.
The main purpose of this site is to share my work as an artist. Here you will find some samples of my drawings, paintings, illlustrations and decorations.
As a child I realized the magic behind a pencil and a piece of paper, it was the key to my own universe and sitting at my parent’s home balcony I started to draw what ever went on the street in my home town of Cojutepeque, El Salvador. Women going to the market, to shop or sell fresh produce and flowers, religious processions, carnival floats…life!
My father was a gifted draftsman and I loved to see his drawings, he was also a talented caricaturist, a dedicated wood carver, a papier-mâché aficionado and good at any handwork; but it was my Mother who would buy my first color pencils and newspaper pads, with those simple elements I started to draw and have never stopped since. She was responsible also for my first visit to a painting exhibition at the Sala Nacional de Exposiciones in the Parque Cuscatlán,San Salvador.
My studies of architecture in Universidad Evangelica, opened the doors to learn a new vocabulary in drawing, the technical aspect of the trade gave me a solid base on perspective, proportion, scale, and the initiation to Art History.
When I arrived to study a Masters Degree in Environmental Design at San Diego State University, I found myself in a totally different system, an Art School where I was exposed to painting, photography, sculpture, cinema, fashion, illustration and so many other disciplines in a very creative context, far from the very formal and strictly structured one of my school in El Salvador. A new door opened!
Upon my arrival in Montreal, I decided to follow my real vocation and registered myself at the Universite du Quebec a Montreal in the Painting and Drawing program. I have also followed some painting classes at the Saidie Broffman Centre and the Visuals Art Centre.
Being a transplanted is not new, humans have emigrated, immigrated, moved around, discovered continents and conquered kingdoms, but is only when it touches you personally that you can understand the phenomena of adaptation, survival, learning life skills from zero again. Romantic memories and nostalgia for my home country have inspired my art work and continues to do so, from where I am now I continue to think of what it was back then, and it is not anymore. Therefore I draw and paint from souvenirs, mental pictures enhanced by the time and distance, the images that as a child I saw from the balcony of my parents’ home, the images I collect during my trips, the stories of my family.
I hope you will enjoy the content of this window, thank you for your interest.
Luis
