Elvis Luna was born on November 4, 1970, in Pucallpa, Peru - the very heart of the Amazon. At an early age, his mother surrounded him with music, flowers and poetry in the hope that he would develop an interest in the arts. His given name reflects her love of music and the indomitable spirit she imparted in him. When Luna was seven, he was sent to live in the jungle with his uncle - a well known curandero or medicine man. For the next eight years, he would endure the rigors of an apprenticeship into shamanism. It was then that he was introduced to the traditional belief system of the Amazonian spirit world that describes an energetic substrate just beneath the visible world. Luna explains that most Peruvians and foreigners are not prepared to understand or to make contact with the plant and animal spirit world. "They look at the jungle and ask what they can get from it. The shaman sees the plants, as they really are - energetic beings with the same spirit and intelligence that we have." When he turned fifteen, Luna returned to his home on the main river and began painting in watercolors. Although he has had no formal art education, his landscape paintings demonstrated a remarkably mature sense of composition, light and perspective. Luna's landscapes are done in the fine Plein-Air tradition. Often painted at night by moonlight, he gives us a privileged look at the rainforest. By faintly illuminating certain areas and backlighting others, he creates a deep dimension within the painting . His intuitive understanding of light and its manifold effects on the darker reflections of the jungle offer us scenes that burn and glow in the imagination. In the mid 1990's, Luna began a series of experimental paintings where he explored the vibratory relationship between color, sound and form. During these years he painted a number of works that investigated the triangle as an underlying common denominator of the sensual world. This style eventually evolved into an approach that he now calls "Energy Abstracts". In 1992, Luna began exhibiting his works in museums and galleries in Columbia, Mexico, Brazil, England, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Germany, and Italy. His paintings are part of numerous private collections in those countries. In 2003, he began his first representation in the United States. Luna's instinct for experimentation, combined with his lack of exposure to traditional art movements and theories, provides him with an unfettered impulse to explore fresh new initiatives. His role as a painter is merely tributary to his larger interests in developing new ways of communicating with and about the world, which is the sine qua non for any progressive contemporary artist today.