biography

Domingo Zapata is a Spanish-American artist born in Palma de Mallorca, Spain on December 22nd, 1974. Currently, Zapata maintains studios at the historic Bowery Hotel in New York City, the 16e arrondissement in Paris, as well as Miami's hottest new playground for international taste makers: the Design District. In these private ateliers, he produces figurative and abstract expressionist paintings. He paints in both oil and acrylics, often incorporating mixed media, collage, and graffiti.

Over the course of his career, the artist has chosen to represent himself while actively collaborating with various galleries worldwide including HUS Gallery, Marlborough Gallery, Parisud and Carmen de la Guerra. In the past year alone, the World Bank, The Chateau Marmont, and the Cipriani Group have all celebrated his achievements with ongoing shows across the globe.

For over 20 years Zapata has built a body of work, which varies significantly in motif, though consistently explores themes of sexuality, opulence, and vitality in his signature style. In this distinctive hand, Zapata layers fantasy and reality, luring the viewer into his potent, cosmically beautiful world. Known for his signature "Polo" series, which first gained him critical acclaim, more recent work focuses on themes including his native Spanish culture and American Pop icons. He often draws on his experiences as a songwriter (Zapata co-wrote lyrics for Michael Jackson and Jon Secada), and exposes his deeply poetic imagination by incorporating text and visual cues into many of his works. In this way, his images coax the viewer into his realm where fact and fiction persist simultaneously, fortifying each other’s beauty, depth, and meaning.

Domingo Zapata attended Regents College in London and American University in Washington D.C. Here, he pursued various facets of art education both in the classroom and in the studio. He specialized in the study of contemporary art as well as the practice of acrylic painting and pastel drawing. Although he has considered himself an artist since childhood, it was during these years as a student when he cultivated a sincerely captivating style that has since attracted many of the world's most prestigious collectors, from George Soros, to Johnny Depp, from the Neuberger Berman Group to the royal families of Europe and abroad.

This March, Cipriani Group hosted the opening of Domingo Zapata’s pop-up gallery at 376 West Broadway. The gallery (open through April 7) showcases Zapata’s latest collection entitled “11 Minutes,” - a title inspired by the synonymous novel by Brazilian novelist Paulo Coelho. This Zapata series explores the triggers of human obsession: beauty, sexuality, and power.

The pop-up follows Zapata’s recent mega success, a star-studded event at the SLS Miami Beach for Art Basel Miami 2012, which revealed a collection entitled “The Love of My Life is in Paris.” The event packed over 3,000 guests in the 8,000 square foot ocean front luxury property with hundreds of fans lined up around the block well through the small hours. That same week, the W Hotel unveiled his most recent mural, a Zapata format now in international demand by both corporate and private curators and designers. The piece now features permanently in the W lobby leading to the entrance of the hotel's popular nightclub, The Wall. In New York, another exceptional Zapata mural is on display at the Dream Downtown hotel. Entitled “Life is a Dream,” the work was purchased by Vikram Chatwal last May.

The future continues to promise illustrious milestones for Zapata. He will share an exceptional new series during his first solo exhibition at the Venice Biennale. It will be held at the historic Palazzo de Mula just steps for the Guggenheim Venice from 1 June, 2013 through 1 November, 2013. Also in 2013, Zapata is preparing a poignant, commemorative work for the lobby of Freedom Tower in Manhattan. The piece will be unveiled as part of the building's opening ceremony and remain on permanent display. Additional commissions include a panel for the newly restored Colosseum in Rome as well as the lobby of the landmark Plaza Hotel in New York.

Named an "artist to watch," in 2011 by the prestigious Whitewall Magazine, Zapata has quickly fulfilled this prophesy. Since, his work has lauded praise from international press such as Vanity Fair Italia, Ocean Drive, and The New York Observer. Most recently, New York Magazine has deemed him, "in a league of his own," while just this October the New York Post proclaimed Zapata to be the "new Andy Warhol, with starlets begging for a sitting"

In this vein, Zapata continues to develop the polaroid series, Ten, for which he will draws from muses such as Pamela Anderson, Kim Kardashian, Michelle Rodriguez, Ana Beatrice Barros, Sofia Vergara, and Eva Herzigova.