Born in Matanzas, Cuba in 1974, Rey grew up surrounded by intense contrasts of colors, pre-1959 American cars and the surging Communist government. His immersion in Cuba’s rhythms and sensuousness was short lived but nonetheless had a lasting impact on his young imagination. Today Alfonso’s work can be found in collections in more than 40 countries. He has created works for individuals and organizations ranging from the San Francisco Opera House to the Mayo Clinic. In 2010, he was commissioned by Hilton Worldwide to create over 150 works for the private collections of the company’s owners and investors.
Orlando Corona currently resides in Greenville, SC where he has lived for the majority of his adult life. He was born in a small rural town in Guanajuato, Mexico. His art encompasses Mexican culture that represents his hometown and his experience as a first generation immigrant and artist. Orlando began his journey in art at the young age of 17 and since then his art has been featured in several different galleries and exhibitions. He is primarily an oil painter and printmaker but has dabbled in different art forms such as speed painting and is determined to learn more about different art forms. His main goal as an artist is to make the experience for Mexicans and other Latinos be seen in the USA from a differing view than traditional norms.
Patricia’s creative journey began in Caracas, Venezuela and through her work, she has journeyed to Seattle, Santa Barbara, Chattanooga, Miami, and now Greenville, SC. The figure is at the center of a magical and symbolic universe in Patricia’s work. She works intuitively with oils, acrylics, graphite, & gold leaf. Her goal is to fuse the acts of painting and drawing into layered surfaces suggesting a sense of atmosphere. With lyrical scrawls, gouges, deep scratches and repetitive mark making, Patricia’s work references the realms of nature, spirituality, and visceral sensation.
Diana was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia. Her fondness for ceramic sculpture goes back to her childhood, when the pre-Hispanic figures and colonial architecture were her focus of interest. In 1999 she received a BFA in Ceramics and Printmaking at Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá, Colombia; and in 2010 she obtained a MFA in Ceramics and Sculpture at the University of South Carolina. She also studied at the University of Anchorage, Alaska, and at the Tainan National University of the Arts in Taiwan as an exchange student. She currently lives, works, and teaches in Greenville, SC.
Sara Montero-Buria was born in the border city of Tijuana, Mexico. At the age of 14, she moved to Greenville, SC with the hopes of learning English and attending Bob Jones University. In 2007, she graduated from said school with a B.A. in International Studies. From a young age–encouraged by her mother and grandmother – Sara studied painting and plastic arts. In recent years, she has participated in art workshops during her travels back to her home country. Her current works of papier mâché and papel picado are influenced by the boldness of her birth city, and the vibrancy, intricacy, and playfulness of Mexican folk arts. Sara’s largest papier mâché piece is a 12-feet-tall Catrina that features an elaborate Day of the Dead altar in her skirts. Beyond Greenville, she has been featured in art shows and events in Clemson, Columbia and Charleston.
Full-time Colombian artist, painter, muralist, trained in large format, lover of the wisdom that communities and their individuals harbor as instruments for individual and collective growth. Jorge is passionate about large formats. There he feels that he can express himself more naturally. Jorge likes to go through the spaces of the surfaces with loose and fluid lines; plan, analyze, review, read, understand, scratch, build, shade, outline, clean, illuminate. Everything comes together in a special story; his work is somehow theatrical, as he slides between lights and shadows, looking for expression, generating balance, and capturing his audience’s astonishment.
Born in Honduras, Jose began life as an upper middle class child in a third world country. He was brought to the USA in 1986 at the age of ten, to a mostly African American community in New Jersey. While in high school, Jose took architecture and art courses and had two pieces elected into a national traveling show across the US. Jose then studied architecture at the Pratt Institute, studying art and architecture in Rome for a semester. Jose’s work is introspective, and most of his early pieces are a recollection of some sort, in many cases self portraits. Currently Jose is moving towards conceptual expressionism and paints more with feeling, getting away from having the pieces being strictly self-focused, but instead focuses on the impression they leave transposed onto the canvas.
