Ernesto de la Peña Folch was born in Mexico city in 1960. He has been painting from the time he turned eleven years old and his first painting teacher was the Mexican surrealist Alfonso Duran Vazquez.  He completed a bachelor’s degree in communication at the Center of Studies in Sciences of Communication in Mexico City. He had a career in advertising and worked as creative director, art director, sketch artist and graphic designer for various companies, after that he joined the school of Painting Engraving and Sculpture “La Esmeralda”.

In 1989 he emigrated to the city of Toronto in Canada to work as a freelance artist, creating artwork and working as a scenic painter in the National Association of Employees and Technicians of the film industry (NABET). During his time in Canada obtained he received the grant Young Creators of CONACULTA among other awards for his work, also in this period he finish his fine art education at the Ontario College of Art and Design.

He returned to Mexico in 1998 to reside permanently in San Miguel de Allende and devote himself to his work and teaching. He spent five and a half years promoting arts and culture as the Director of the Centro Cultural Ignacio Ramirez “El Nigromante” for the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature. In 2012 he resigned that position to devote himself just to his art.

His artwork has been exhibited in Mexico, United States and Canada in places like: Harbourfront Centre, the universities of Toronto and York, Salon de Arte Bancomer, Patricia Conde gallery, Centro Cultural Ignacio Ramirez, Art Museum of Sinaloa. Currently you can find his work at art XXI and Galleria La Manzanilla. He is a permanent member of Gallery CSEIS in San Miguel Allende.

The art dealer Patricia Conde defines his work as “Ludic Expressionism”