Carlos Perez
Carlos Raul Perez was born August 12, 1953 in Southern California, and is currently living in Northern California. Carlos is a quintessential postmodern painter and sculptor who combines the best of Old Master styles, such as El Greco and Jean-Baptiste Grueze, with contemporary imagery and techniques.
After finishing his formal education, he pursued his love of photography by accepting a position as portrait photographer at the Elson-Alexander Studio. This was to be the basis for a fertile painting career.
A self-taught painter, by his early thirties Carlos was garnering attention for his unique works of narrative realism. His interest in painting slowly increased until photographic images began to serve only as reference for his oil paintings. Over the years his painting has evolved into a most personal style where by he manipulates various mediums in where historical, mythological, or other images from the works of artists as diverse as El Greco, de Vinci, and Bouguereau are juxtaposed with his own images – abstract or otherwise; in an effort to reveal multiple realities. Carlos pursues this same goal in his exploration of sculpture – specifically found object assemblages.
"Perez blends a fresh approach to dreamy surreal imagery and is unafraid to incorporate distressed and found materials within his refined intuitive pieces." - Erickson Fine Art Gallery, Healdsburg, CA
He has shown at the UCLA Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, CA and Publications ARTnews, ARTscene, ARTNow Gallery Guide, California Art Review, ARTnews, L.A. West,Tools as Art, Hechinger Collection, Abrams Press, and ART 7. Perez is in noteworthy collections of Frederick Weissman Foundation Estate LA, CA, and corporate collections such as Gernsbacher & McGarrigile Corporation and Kekker and Van Nest LLP, among others.