My name is Anthony Pabillano, a Houston-based artist with an art studio at Sabine Street Studios and with representations by Archway Gallery and by Bruvel Editions. I have been an artist for most of my life, however, only starting in late 2016 did I begin to allocate more of my time to my artform. Within the past three years, I went from entering my first juried exhibition to becoming a board member for the Visual Arts Alliance (VAA), participating in more juried exhibitions in Texas and across the United States, renting out an art studio, being admitted as a member-artist at Archway Gallery, and speaking at Houston City Hall about my art, all while supporting myself through my daytime job. The past three years have been filled with memorable moments in my art career, and I am constantly looking forward to what other exciting opportunities the future holds.

Though I create works of art in traditional media (such as graphite, charcoal, colored pencils, pastels, and acrylic paints, among others), the medium that I prefer the most is paper. My love of paper as a medium began in high school when my art teacher assigned a Henri Matisse-inspired cut-out art project and when I used wallpaper scraps to create a replica of Madonna and child. These two undertakings—cutting blocks of paper in organic and geometric forms per the Matisse project, and cutting into paper to convey the contour lines of the Madonna-and-child image—form the foundation of the style of paper art that I developed back in 2010. My method of conveying the three-dimensionality of form involves cutting blocks of paper and layering them, with the layers of paper in gradations of color that are in turn cut in such a way that follow the contours of the different values on the form.

Ever since I learned to formally draw back in high school, I have always been intrigued by the human form. This fascination has led to my exploring various aspects of the human condition and experience through my portraiture work, from ideas relating to self and identity, to topics about diversity. My current artistic pursuit is to visually celebrate the diversity and the individual stories of the people I meet whose walks of life all led to the multiculturally-, multinationally-, and multi-ethnically-rich city of Houston, Texas—the place I now call home.