Born 1976 San Diego, California
Gabriel Munguia is a Mexican-American artist based in Shanghai, China. Gabriel Munguia was born and raised in San Diego in “Barrio Logan” the second oldest of eight siblings. His first impression of art was of “Chicano Park” the largest public murals in USA. It was the vivid Mexican colors throughout his neighborhood growing up that were always on his mind when he paints. He graduated with his Bachelor of Arts from Saint Olaf College, Minnesota, USA. Gabriel Munguia started his art career as an apprentice in 1999 for one of China’s most renowned contemporary artists -- Chen Yifei, and later with Marcestel Squarciafichi one of France's master living contemporary artists. These two modern master's mentorships were awe-inspiring and in fact, changed the course of his life. In 2017-18 he was accepted at the prestigious Sichuan Fine Art Institute as a visiting Scholar in the art practice and academic arena of the Song Dynasty. This inspired the artist to grow into the Munguia we know and realize today. Gabriel Munguia is a man of passion with his pulse on Shanghai. For two decades now Gabriel Munguia has chartered his own personal Shanghai odyssey on canvas. He has shared with us his growing pains, his love, his loneliness, his isolation, his joy and his excitement, and above all his passion for life. It is a passion that shines in his art. We are engaged by his life-affirming energy, sensitive and generous nature, cheerful disposition, intuition, and honesty. With the richly textured abstraction linked in the color, there is a quest for harmony and balance in the universe of the unknown |
Chen Yifei |
Marcestel |