User:Minipyro88/Rigo Peralta

Rigo Peralta is a Dominican artist currently residing in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Early Life
Mario Rigoberto Peralta was born in San José de las Matas, Dominican Republic. He studied at the National Academy of Fine Arts in Santiago, Dominican Republic.

He emigrated to New York City in 1989 and studied at the Art Students League of New York. From 2002-2003, he served as the art director of the Casa de la Cultura Dominicana.

Currently
Peralta now resides in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and is a resident artist at the Banana Factory in the South Side of Bethlehem. He paints mainly in oil and is known for his surrealist pieces. His inspiration includes the growing automated nature of mankind, religion, sex, and his nationality. He was recently commissioned by the Sands Casino in Bethlehem to produce a series of painting depicting both the community and the newly renovated steel mill.

Individual Expositions
In 1996 he exhibited his work Spiritual Essence at the Boricua College, Gallery Graham Center, Brooklyn, NY. He exhibited his work Mas Alla de Aqui or More There of Here in 1997 at the 97th Street Branch Library in New York, NY. In 1999 he made had another professional exhibit with Witness of the Time which debuted at the Fort Washington Penthouse in New York, NY. More recently, his exhibition, Transition debuted at the Ellarslie Museum in Trenton, NJ in 2004

Collective Expositions
He has been a part of many collective showings, including the 1993 Art is Ageless exhibition at the North Concourse Gallery, Albany, NY. He was also selected to participate in the 1996 Faces of America's Lucent Technologies in Warren, NJ, and the 1999 Sintesis de un Lenguaje at the Pearl Gallery, New York, NY.

Awards
In 2003 he became the first Dominican artist to receive a Presidential invitation to the White House. In 2008 he was presented with the National Dominican Prize by President Leonel Antonio Fernández Reyna of the Dominican Republic.