Manuel Gómez-Crespo
About Manuel Gómez-Crespo Born In Puerto Rico on 1977
Personal Statement
I have been producing art since I can remember. Coloring books were not enough, so I was drawing on the walls. My mother did not stop me. She would put brown paper on the walls so I could continue to draw. Sometimes she would catch me reaching over the paper to reach the wall. My father, a painter, and my mother, a literature teacher, raised me around books and art. When I was three, my dad left to continue his studies in The Art Students League of New York, but I was too young to understand. My mother continued her graduate studies and stayed working in the University of Puerto Rico. They had been married for nine years when they decided to divorce.
My childhood was between New York and Puerto Rico. Since I grew around the University of Puerto Rico, I was able to participate in different workshops for children available. Nobody ever forced me to take them. I always felt the need to keep creating some kind of art and had the chance to participate in workshops of drawing, painting, photography and ceramics. Most of the summers and holidays I came to New York City to visit my dad. We shared a love for art in museums and painting in Central Park. Museums showed me the history of art at first hand.
At six years old I was considered a very creative kid but was having trouble maintaining good grades in school. After being tested by a child psychologist, I was diagnosed with dyslexia. But I had an IQ above average for my age. I had to repeat the first grade and from that moment school became a struggle.
The next year, when I was seven my dad came to the island to visit my grandparents and friends. He took me to visit painter Fran Cervoni in his studio. He was one of his most beloved teachers and a respected artist of Puerto Rico. Cervoni studied art in Europe early in the twentieth century and has paintings in various collections of the art museums of Puerto Rico. His paintings have a distinctive brushstroke that accentuates the beautiful Caribbean landscape. When I met him, he was in his eighties and still teaching in his studio in Santurce. He asked me to be his student for free. With him I learn about light and shadow, how to appreciate proportion, and to work with composition. I was the only kid in his classes.
Since I was still having trouble with my grades, I had to repeat the sixth grade. I was put in a specialized school where I worked with smaller groups of students. From that moment on, I began improving my grades. Around the same time, on another visit to New York City in 1992, I fell in love with comic books for their cool drawings and fantasy stories. I became a collector and started to copy my favorite artist like Jim Lee and Todd McFarlane. I was learning anatomy and my dad gave me a book called “How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way”. My dad taught me how to work anatomy. He draws very well, to the point that he is the monitor of the members’ sketch class today in The Art Students League of New York. When I was fourteen, on another visit, my dad brought me to some of these classes. Those were my first nude drawings.
I was making my own compositions and got notice in school as an artist. They would call me to do anything that had to do with art and design. From this moment on, it was clear to me that I was going to be an artist. Since I got better grades, I was transferred to a regular group. But I wanted to improve my art skills and the only way was to apply to the Central High School of Art in Puerto Rico. After a portfolio and art exam, I was accepted, but my grades had to be perfect to get in. They recognized my talent and gave me the choice to get in the school if I would repeat the tenth grade voluntarily. I really wanted to be in the only high school that specializes in the arts on the island and take art every day. I accepted, even though I could continue to eleventh grade in the other school where I was.
I had to start taking a basic art class to introduce new students to the different fields of art and after a year I could select an art department. When they saw the work I produced on the very first week, they were very impressed and I was allowed to transfer to the art department of my choice. I joined the commercial art class. After the first month, I was recommended to join the Arts Honor Society. At this time of my life, I proved to myself that I could be the best in anything that involves art, but I was sixteen years old and three years behind. Determined to recover lost time, when I turned eighteen years old I took a GED exam. Although I was out of school, I did not stay without taking art classes. I joined as a non-matriculated student in The School of Plastic Arts of Puerto Rico. The school became my best choice to start my undergraduate studies since it is part of the Institute of Culture of Puerto Rico and is located in the beautiful Old San Juan. I applied there and to other universities and got accepted to three of them. I continued my studies as a regular student in the Graphic Design Department of the School of Plastic Arts.
After taking classes for a while, I started to take elective classes of sculpture. My interest on the different materials was a new experience for me. When I took a class on steel art, it was the day that I found out that I was in love with form and volume. I realized that sculpture was the format in which I could express myself as an artist. Artists like Eduardo Chillida, who challenged the possibilities of steel, and Constantin Brancusi, who simplifies form beautifully in compositions that eliminate the pedestal with harmony of materials, became my inspiration. Determined to be a sculptor, I changed my concentration from graphic design to sculpture.
The next year of studies I was praised as a talented student for the work I exhibited on the university gallery and was recommended to work with the sculptor Carlos Guzman on the fabrication of monuments and exhibitions. Guzman’s abstract steel sculptures exalt the marine life and nature of the Caribbean. Working with him showed me how a sculptor manages his work. I learned to work stainless steel, to do different kinds of welding, polishes, painting, finishes, and to make a strong structure for monuments. It also gave me the chance to meet and assist his mentor, sculptor Pablo Rubio, whose monuments challenge balance and space. He made the longest sculpture in the world in the town of Bayamon.
About this time I was twenty one years old and my first son was born. Being a young father, I started to have trouble attending the university. I dropped out for some time and had to ask for readmission. The change of concentration and the time I was off extended my time to finish. But I always continued pursuing my goal. Being an artist is my life, so I never gave up. I applied to the adults’ program at the art school and took classes at night and worked during the daytime. After my second son was born, I began looking for the right job for me. I took my chances to be a welder. That way I was able to improve my skills and make enough to live. I work with different types of steel work companies and became a professional welder/fabricator. After four years of work, I was confident enough to work by my own and began doing custom steel works with some colleagues on a small company called INOX. Together we make art, gates, railings, stairs, doors, furniture, bridges, store signs and lamps with a touch of originality. We also participated and help each other on exhibitions. I continued to improve my grades and graduated in 2010.
I specialized on steel but the work I do is mixed media. I work according to an idea that has been planned and designed before the execution of the project. I am a sculptor with restless spirit, something galactic, mathematician, physicist and futurist. My themes or concepts are encapsulated within science fiction, the Cosmos, with a magnet and balance for the interior design and functional elements within the same art concept. With my artist’s pulse and the advantage of being a professional welder/fabricator as, my highest ambition is to create monumental works that awakens new dimensions or reinvents the relationship between space and time.
I have been working on the next step in my career and had move to New York City in 2012 were I accomplished an MFA on sculpture from PRATT INSTITUTE in 2015. Since then Im part of a creative group in a private company call ATH STUDIOS base in INDUSTRY CITY (south Brooklyn) were I have been a artisan in works for artist, designers and architects. Here I have the chance to specialize in my metal sculpture skills but have the chance to work in other materials like wood and resin. I want to learn new skills and continue a professional life as an artist not only with my work but by teaching others. My ultimate goal is to emerge fully qualified to produce quality work and be part of an institution where I can contribute to the next generations of artist.