Carmelo Sobrino

Carmelo Sobrino was born in Manatí in 1948, the son of Doña Trinidad Arroyo and Don Carmelo Martínez. Upon the death of his parents he went to live with his grandparents in the countryside.

 

It was there that he had his first encounter with art, with his grandmother’s handcrafts, making instruments and carving wood.

Afterwards he was inspired by the signs of his town, he began to draw letters, and for a time he dedicated himself to making signs and calligraphy. He attended the Miguel Such Vocational School in Arecibo, where he studied construction drawing. His first formal art teacher was Don Oscar Colón Delgado in Hatillo. Later, en the 60’s, he studied painting, sculpture, stained-glass, and graphics arts in Escuela de Artes Plásticas del Instituto de Cultura de Puerto Rico, with great teachers like Fran Cervoni, Carlos Raquel Rivera, Rafael Tufiño y Augusto Marín among others.

His artistic interests brought him to Mexico, the United States, Santo Domingo, Jamaica and Europe, where the great painters of the world influenced him. In 1968 together with Antonio Martorell he founded “Taller Alacrán” to help develop the talent of the youth that had dropped out of school, by teaching graphic arts.

In 1970 he founded “Taller Capricornio” the in Santurce. In 1981 he directed a project in Spain of traveling exhibitions of murals by spanish and puerto rican artists. He was a teacher in the Students Art League of San Juan, Casa Candina and the University of Turabo in Caguas.

He has participated in important individual and group exhibitions, many inside as well as outside of Puerto Rico. He has been commissioned to come up with diverse public works, which include the mural “Horizonte” in the vestibule of the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (1999) and the mural on the ceiling of the vestibule of Taboas Theater in Manatí “Mural Constelación Mensajera”.