ROBERTO GIL DE MONTES was born in Guadalajara, Mexico and moved to Los Angeles as a teenager. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts and Masters of Fine Arts from Otis Art Institute, and is currently a professor of art at UCLA. Among many other solo and group exhibitions, Gil de Montes was included in the prestigious Hispanic Art in the US: Thirty Contemporary Painters and Sculptors which toured the country in the late 1980s. Many themes are found in Gil de Montes’ work—his Mexican origins, his life in Echo Park, Mexican popular art, the tradition of retablos and ex-voto paintings, and the unexpected.