Fabian Perez, 1967 | Flamenco Dancers

Growing up in Argentina, Fabian Perez - Argentine painter, developed a fondness for art through his parents, who possessed strong creative sides but were never professional artists. His mother drew, and it rubbed off on Perez, who excelled in art classes and painted murals on the walls of his school at his teachers' requests.

The stories and photographs of what happened inside filtered back to Perez, and the air of sensuality and romanticism can be found in the portraits of women and nightclub scenes he paints today. Another influential force in Perez's artistic development was a martial arts instructor he started studying under when he was 18, the same year his father died. That time in Perez's life was tough, as his mother also had died three years earlier.

At 22, Perez moved with the instructor to Italy where he spent seven years developing his craft and writing a book titled "Reflections of a Dream", which was later published in the United States. After Italy, he moved to Japan and painted two pieces that are now on display at a government house. After a year there, he moved to Beverly Hills where he currently resides.When artist Fabian Perez captures a person or place on canvas, he doesn't just portray the outward beauty. He taps into the mood of the moment and leaves a powerful feeling in the wake of his brush strokes. In 2009 Perez was named the official artist of the 10th annual Latin Grammy Awards. In 2010 Perez was selected to paint the 2010 Winter Olympics.

It's Perez's emotion-filled art that five years ago caught the attention of Robert Bane, owner of Robert Bane Editions, a longstanding Beverly Hills-based art publisher. Bane was eating lunch with his wife in a Los Angeles cafe, and one of Perez's paintings on the wall compelled him to contact the artist. Shortly after meeting, the two men became business partners, and Perez quickly ascended the ranks of the industry's hottest emerging artists.

Perez's work has also gathered a sizeable international following in the past several years. Since signing Perez, Robert Bane Editions has published nearly 300 of the artist's signed-and-numbered limited-edition canvases, and there's currently a waiting list for originals. Last year, Perez's art appeared at 11 shows in the United States and 21 throughout the United Kingdom. Atone in England, all of the pieces sold out in 10 minutes. Part of what makes Perez's images so desirable is the passion and personality behind them. "The canvas is Fabian's way of writing the poetry of his life," Bane says.

Indeed, much of his subject matter is reminiscent of the culture of his youth and his Spanish heritage.
Today, Perez divides much of his rime between his studio and promotional tours. An artist that tends to go with the flow of his ideas, Perez is constantly altering his style to try new things. In the near future, he plans to experiment with the contrast of light and dark to "give less information" to viewers and "create mystery", he says. "As an artist, you have to be changing all the rime. If you put a name with what you do, people will compare you with it". Amid the desire for change, though, there will be one constant in Perez's paintings. People will still be the primary subject matter because he thrives off high lighting their inner spirits.