In second grade, Sergio was an artistic entrepreneur creating drawings of quirky animals and then selling them to classmates for five cents! His classmates were delighted and what Sergio discovered was that he was able to fill his need to communicate. Through visual images, he could not only communicate his idea of the world and all his different emotions, but he was able to stir something within others as well. It was as if he was carrying on a conversation through art; he was speaking and people were listening and responding. That was an invaluable gift.
Sergio’s desire to communicate through art led to high school dreams of becoming a comic book artist. As an avid comic book collector, he was continually inspired and enthralled by the detail and intricacy of the artwork within them. At eighteen, he followed his heart and left his Long Island home to study illustration at Parsons School of Design in New York City. There he began unleash the influences in his life upon the canvas. Sergio was born in Toronto, Canada, and his family is originally from Colombia. The South American influence fused together with the incredible energy of New York City led to new, diverse creations. In 1997, he graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art in Illustration.
Today, Sergio mixes traditional illustration with fine art in his eclectic paintings filled with bold colors and shapes that leap off the page. Whether the subjects are animals, people or objects, he enjoys contemplating a subject and projecting his interpretation onto the canvas. “I consider all my work portraiture. I try to give a sense of the subject with a visual language unique to that subject. Overall, I endeavor to create paintings that communicate a sense of life,” says Sergio.
Sergio has been a guest lecturer at a true fresco-painting workshop held during the spring semester at Parsons School of Design. The workshop has allowed him to explore this traditional method of painting and help to make it more accessible to the modern art world. His work has been exhibited at several galleries around the country including the Maude Kearns Art Center in Eugene, Oregon and the Saint John's University Gallery in Queens, New York. Currently, Sergio works out of his Jersey City, New Jersey studio.
