b. 1956 Manuel Nuñez was born in 1956, into a family versed in the arts and Latino culture. His father, Manuel Nuñez Sr., was a well known singer and song writer who recorded nine Spanish-language albums in the 1950's. "I listen to his music all of the time, but it's only now that I really appreciate his music and what he was doing with it." After graduating from the prestigious Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California and The Otis Parsons Institute in Los Angeles, Nuñez worked as a commercial illustrator and designer within the fashion industry for 10 years. As Manuel Nuñez emerged from fashion illustration in 1991, as one of America’s most promising contemporary painters, Manuel developed a body of fine art that captured both the contemporary and timeless spirit of women. Women that are strong and virtuous, who are beautiful, but not exploited. Women who wrestle with the underlying conflict of what life is versus what it should be. The use of his trademark - a hand-applied 23-karat gold leaf - is indicative of the spiritual roots of the artist and its interpolation into his work. "The gold itself is a dichotomy," he explains. "Gold can, at the same time, symbolize decadence or indulgence and the righteous purity shown in Russian icon art." In Nuñez’ work, these disparate elements reign in conjunction with each other, as does the feminine mystique which combines virtue and sensuality - love and lust coexisting within the compositional expression as they cohabit the body and soul in life.