I was born in the small province of Tanauan, Batangas, in the Philippines on October 9, 1973. After graduating from The Chicago Academy for the Arts in 1992, I earned my BFA with a Major in Painting and Drawing from the Cooper Union School of Art in New York. While my everyday palette consists of representational imagery and copy, the graphic work I do is informed by the intangible. This unseen-but-felt is what I bring to light through my abstract expressionist paintings. While the paintings themselves are a concrete documentation of my thoughts, emotions and life experiences, what is actually expressed has no concrete form. To understand each work is to undertake the time and work to get to know who I am. My paintings, while not landscapes, use earthly elements to establish a place. While they are not portraits, they are a mirror of human expression. Similarly, the works cannot be called “still-life” in the traditional sense of concept, but they do capture an experienced moment in a human’s life. There is no hidden imagery to be found, but they are, in fact, open books to be read, if you can understand the language. Through the physical act of painting I fully experience being alive. I paint not to mimic what has already been created around me, but rather as an expression of gratitude for being alive.