Hernan Restrepo

As an emerging visual artist, being Latino offers me a great amount of satisfaction. As Latin Art projects diversity, my ethnicity alone provides a large palette from which I obtain many shades of inspiration. Despite social turbulence that struck in the mid eighties, I believe that living my childhood in Colombia motivated me to develop my artistic awareness, in part, due to its broad fusion of environment and culture. I consider Colombia to be the most diversified country in Latin America. When I immigrated to the U.S in November of 1991 at the age of thirteen, my upbringing helped me to not only evaluate my culture even more, but also to learn from other Latino cultures, thus making me what I am a Latino.

Art has always played an essential role in my life. It has given me Consolation, Jubilation, Amazement, and above all, Identity. My artistic training started at the age of fourteen. Being a lousy student, I credit my drawing classes for keeping me in school and enabling me to graduate. After high school, in my quest to continue my education in Art; I encountered many obstacles that hindered the attainment of my goals. Currently, I attend Gibbs College, where I am pursuing an Associates degree in Visual Communication Arts.

As an artist, the masters of my field influence me. My preference varies according to their period in the history of art. Diego Velasquez, a Spanish painter from the seventeenth century, is one of my favorites. I admire his confidence and attention to composition; but more than anything else, I admire his ability to tell a story in a visual fashion. In addition, Fernando Botero, a contemporary Colombian painter and sculptor, has also had an impact on my work. Through the study of his work, I have learned the importance of compositional space and tonality.

Although I have been painting for ten years, I am most satisfied with the work I have produced in the past three. Teaching oneself to paint can be frustrating, yet this process has helped me to be honest with myself and to observe my work through the eyes of the viewer

Thank you for your interest in my work. I hope you have had the chance to emerge into a story by viewing one of my paintings; after all, it is storytelling that drives me to paint.