Can a painting ever contain an entire person? The works of Gerardo Peña, also known as Periko The Artist, leave room for their subjects to move and change, resisting the idea that any of us can be reduced to a single image or expression.

Peña’s colorful, surreal figures capture something less fixed than a likeness, reflecting the restless, ever-changing experience of being. Faces split, features blur, eyes repeat, and emotions pass across the canvas. Like a lenticular image that changes when tilted, his work reveals new facets of a figure the longer you look—and reminds us how many versions of ourselves can exist at once.

Bright reds, electric yellows, teal blues, and fiery oranges give the paintings an irresistible energy. But beneath all that color, bones, animals, and other symbolic motifs lurk, giving the work a dark charge. There is a deliberate disorder to it all, with elements that seem to come from different visual worlds. A figure might be rendered in crisp, graphic color while an animal beside it appears more realistic and muted—more than one style sharing the same strange space. The work can feel playful one moment, then tender or unsettling the next. “People who understand my work, understand themselves,” he says.

Born in Querétaro, Mexico, Peña moved to Washington as a child and grew up in communities throughout the Puget Sound region. His experience as an immigrant and former DACA recipient runs through a practice shaped by questions of belonging and change.

Looking at Peña’s ever-shifting faces, I think of my Mexican grandfather, who lived between two cultures but chose assimilation for the family he raised in the United States. Spanish was not passed down, though I heard the world he came from in his calls with family back home and tasted it in the food he served at his restaurant. Peña’s works bring that tension to mind—the different, sometimes conflicting worlds an immigrant carries.

Peña began his art career in Tacoma and has since taken his vivid visual language well beyond the canvas, working across murals, sculpture, and public art. His paintings have appeared in exhibitions including 21st Century PoP at South Puget Sound Community College, while his murals can be found throughout Tacoma, Kent, and Seattle. Most recently, the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture selected him to create nine metal-and-concrete inlays along the NE 130th and NE 125th corridor and at Lake City Floodplain Park—a project that will place his work directly into the city’s sidewalks.

His work is currently on view in the group exhibition What’s the Story? Contemporary Narratives of Home, Identity, and Connection at ArtX Contemporary through Sept. 19.

Name

Gerardo Peña, aka Periko The Artist

Hometown

Born in Querétaro, Mexico. Raised up and down the Puget Sound. I started my art career in Tacoma.

Discipline

Surreal portrait artist (mostly acrylic paintings and murals, with occasional sculptures).

Favorite spot in Seattle

Pioneer Square. Over the last couple of years, the Art Walk has really been growing into a wonderful art scene, and because of my career, I tend to spend the most time there.

Describe your work in three words.

Crazy. Introspective. Haunting. 

When did you know you wanted to be an artist?

I was 27 years old, managing a cleaning company, and I was completely miserable. After a car accident that gave me chronic back pain, and because of the current political climate, I realized—as a DACA recipient at the time—it was now or never to pursue a career in the arts. To be completely blunt, I’ve always struggled with mental health. At the time, it felt like if I didn’t make a drastic change in my life and chase my dreams, I would eventually end up ending my life down the road.

Where do you find inspiration?

I’m very much inspired by the human experience—by people’s stories and specifically my own story at times. I’m drawn to the process of change and healing. 

What draws you to your particular medium?

I’m a very visual person, and I want people to see what I see. I tend to see images all the time—when I’m trying to sleep, eat, work out, and specifically when I listen to music. It drives me absolutely nuts. Sometimes I’ll immerse myself in music and sound and turn it into visual art that reflects what I see and feel. In a sense, painting helps relieve the itch of all that relentless imagery in my head by giving me a way to express it. 

What are you working on now?

I tend to work on many things at the same time. I’m currently working on pieces for art shows, murals, and posters. 

Tell us about a moment in your career that made you especially proud.

I’ve had many moments in my life where I’ve had to start over and many career changes. I could say my first solo art show or the first time I went viral, but I was so busy trying to survive that I didn’t enjoy any of that. No, nothing will beat the time I finally got my apartment after sleeping in my art studio for months. I lay in the middle of my empty apartment after getting the keys, excited to bring my dog home. I couldn’t believe that, after everything I went through and sacrificed, I was finally paying my bills with nothing but money I made from art. 

What do you still hope to accomplish as an artist?

I have many plans to expand into different mediums and art forms. My first dream as a child was to make films, but I grew up poor, and pencil and paper were a more affordable art medium. Maybe now I can someday circle back to my childhood dream. 

Define success on your terms.

Success to me means being able to do what you love and being able to take care of the people you love as well. Some inner peace wouldn’t hurt either.