EDUCATION
MFA Visual Arts, Columbia University, New York NY
B.A. Creative Studies (Painting), College of Creative Studies, University of California at Santa Barbara

EXHIBITIONS
2009 Look Into Your Eyes (Medalla/Ocampo/Pfeiffer), three part-traveling exhibition, New York/London/Manila
2008 Rendering Capitalism, Manilatown Heritage Foundation Center, SF CA
2007 Filipino Diaspora Part III: International, Manilatown Heritage Foundation Center, SF CA
Hijo de Tuta, Kearny Street Workshop: Space 180, SF CA Alienated Mass Historia, Root Division Gallery, SF CA Taste, Root Division Gallery, SF CA
Taste, Root Division Gallery, SF CA
2006 Boom Box, Root Division Gallery, SF CA
2004 Timeless/Timeliness: Emerging Artists New York, New Jersey, New England
Aljira Contemporary Art Center, Newark NJ, 2004, Curator: Dominique Nahas, Art Critic/Independent Curator
2001 Master of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition, Columbia University New York NY, Curator: Jerry Saltz, Art Critic New England/New York New Talent 2001, Hampden Gallery, Univ. of Massachusetts Amherst MA, Juror: Jeannette Ingberman, EXIT ART Gloss, LeRoy Neiman Gallery, Columbia University New York NY 2000 Part 01, Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University New York NY Curator: Michael Cohen, writer, Flash Art magazine
1997 Filipino Contemporary Artists, Asian Resource Gallery, Oakland CA
1996 Point of View, Center for the Visual Arts, Oakland CA
Dare to be Different: 6 Asian American Artists, Chinatown Arts Gallery, San Francisco CA
National Works on Paper Exhibition, Gallery Concord, Concord CA, Juror: Enrique Chagoya, Artist
1995 Obsession, Southern Exposure Gallery, San Francisco
CA, Juror: Gary Garrels, SFMOMA

CURATORIAL
2008 Rendering Capitalism, Manilatown Heritage Foundation Center, SF CA
2007 Alienated Mass Historia, Root Division Gallery, SF CA
2001 Gloss, LeRoy Neiman Gallery, Columbia University New York NY

TEACHING
2001-09 Columbia University School of the Arts NY, University of California at Berkeley Extension SF CA,Root Division Community Arts Education SF CA, California College of the Arts SF CA

LECTURES
2007 Visiting Artist Lecture, Graduate Painting Seminar, CCA SF CA Artist Talk,
Filipino Diaspora Part III: International, Manilatown Heritage Foundation Center, SF CA
2004 Visiting Artist Lecture, Open Ground Gallery, Brooklyn NY

WRITING
2008 "Cabin Fever: The Paintings of Juan Carlos Quintana," catalog essay, Taylor Bercier Fine Arts, New Orleans, LA
MIJU: Effigies and Demagogues at Jack Fischer Gallery, review, Shotgun Review
Albert Oehlen: Paintings 1988-2008 at Berggruen Gallery, review, Shotgun Review

FELLOWSHIPS, SCHOLARSHIPS
2002 Aljira Emerging Artist Program, New York - New Jersey
2001 Brevoort Eickemeyer Scholarship Grant, Columbia University, New York NY

BIBLIOGRAPHY
2004 Nahas, Dominique, Timeless/Timeliness: Aljira Emerge 2003 catalog, Aljira Contemporary Art Center.Bischoff, Dan, Aljira's Emerge 2003 Presents Amazing Examples of Technique,
The Sunday Star - Ledger, Aug. 15, 2004

ARTIST BIO
Arvin Flores is a Philippine-born painter with an MFA graduate degree from Columbia University, School of the Arts, New York NY,and a BFA from the College of Creative Studies,University of California at Santa Barbara.He has shown nationally at the University of Massachusetts Amherst's Hampden Gallery, Columbia University's LeRoy Neiman and Wallach Art Galleries, Aljira Contemporary Art Center NJ,and at Southern Exposure Gallery SF. Flores has teaching experience at Columbia University NY,California College of the Arts, and the University of California at Berkeley Extension. He is based in Oakland, California.

STATEMENT
Salvific Agony on Canvas
The painting series "Salvific Agony on Canvas" is a meditation on otherworldly torment and transcendence through aesthetic practice. The process of art is not so different from the religious where the attempt rests on the reification of something out of nothing, or the transubstantiation of essences and values into mindful devotional acts. Hence, the artist's role is similar to the spiritual prophet who listens to an inner voice, who is sensitive to the command of higher beings (SP). However, the artist as a person (MK) is nonetheless plagued with everyday torments, with temptations ranging from the mundanely private to the socially complex, and where inner torment run rampant like medieval demons haunting, devouring, and deforming his very being. See Grunewald's painting "The Temptation of Saint Anthony" as an example. Thus, one's being, psyche or soul, once in a state despair that is a sickness unto death (SK), is a figure stretched to its limit, contorted ignominiously in the form of a monster born from the sleep of reason (FG), producing a grotesque body of the social alienated from life and itself. The person as an artist (JB) attacks the abstract-by-abstract means (SK), through a process, that is art, which corresponds to the healing of life. Every man is an artist (JB) where everyday routines: cooking, walking, sitting, thinking, etc., can be approached creatively leading to the spiritual. This creative principle is important, as the true artist helps the world by giving mystic truths (BN); but without this creativity, what remains is only… comprehensible to a few initiates (MJO).