Jesús Emmanuel Villarreal has been recognized for his artistic abilities since his early teen years in Miami, Florida, where he studied at the South Miami School of Arts while taking additional studio instruction with Abdon J. Romero. He earned his B.F.A. from Maryland Institute College of Art, in Baltimore in 2006 and then spent three years studying at The Florence Academy of Art until 2009, where he was teaching in his last year. Upon returning to America, the artist worked and lived in Brooklyn, NY and started teaching at The Silvermine Arts Center, in New Canaan, Connecticut, and was a guest lecturer at the Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts, in Old Lyme, Connecticut. Over his career, Villarreal has won numerous awards, scholarships, and honors, including the coveted Grand Prize in the 2011 Portrait Society of America’s International Portrait Competition, among others. He has shown his work in several group and solo exhibitions in America and abroad and is currently represented by Haynes Gallery, in Nashville, Tennessee, and is part of the permanent collection of the New Britain Museum of American Art. He also shows his work at the Forum Gallery in New York. He now lives and works in Miami, FL.