I started painting a couple years ago. I chose oil as the medium, because I felt that it would be challenging, and yet, flexible. And traditional. I didn’t go to art school, I paint by instinct and my memories are my resources. I spent most of my teenage years drawing cartoons and caricatures, I used watercolor and then a black pen around the edges.

WHY THE BIG PAINTINGS - My wife Estella and I own a peruvian-cuisine restaurant in Miami Beach, named El Rincón de Chabuca (I will explain the nature of the name some other time) the interiors walls of the restaurant are big, and it would take a number of pictures to fill them up, so we decided to get pictures of a decent size.

I began to look for the right images. I wanted big peruvian scenes or characters, but everything I found were images of the mountains (the Andes), everyday scenes of andean people with their llamas, and the women with their baby on their backs. Typical paintings. Beautiful. Nostalgic. But every peruvian restaurant has something similar, besides, I DO NOT IDENTIFY WITH THOSE IMAGES. I was raised in the coast of Peru, Lima, the capital.

As much of a shame that it can be, I’ve never been to the Andes. But in Lima there are as many stories and scenes, and characters that I saw as I was growing up. I wanted images of characters, vendors, musicians, etc, that I remember, and that are very traditional in the every day life in the Lima I lived.

After a long and frustrating search for the right imagery to hang in the walls of my restaurant, I gave up. However, I figured that if at one point in my life, I drew and painted these little cartoons and caricatures on small pieces of paper about 30 years ago, I could tary to do it again, in a much bigger scale.

I chose a format of 3' x 4'. Good size. I didn’t want to try first in a small scale, and then bigger, and then bigger, and then... I wanted to go for the big size from the beginning, and if I failed and the painting didn’t satisfy me, I WOULD JUST THROW IT AWAY!! ...nobody would have to know about this, just my wife and kids.

So I painted “El Cajonero”. I liked it. and people responded very well. That’s how all this started. Hopefully people will like my work. And for the people that think that Perú is all about llamas and andean music I believe that with my images and the stories that come with them I would be able to open their minds a little more.