Manuel Jaen

Say Something About You , Say Hello To The World
I was born in Panama City in 1962, briefly after, my family moved to Port Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, where we stayed for eight years and  started my early schooling. English became my first language. In 1970 we moved back to Panama where I attended high school. A year after my 17 years graduation my family, once again, decided to relocate overseas, this time in Italy.

Since my early childhood I was told I was gifted in drawing and painting. However, it was in Italy where my interest in art grew and  I really developed a technical education in graphic design and an interest in visual arts. In 1983, after a visit to El Museo del Prado in Madrid, I decided to get a formal academic art education. Ever since my passion for art history, philosophy and social science has evolved.

My first academic art education year in Milan was in the newly open Nueva Academia in Milano, a private art academy, whose teaching staff included Luigi Veronesi and Gianni Colombo and several others talented Italian artists .

After a year at Nueva Academia, some of us decided to move to the state own Academia di Brera, were we attended the classical and figurative school for a year. I graduated in 1988 and stated working in various design shops and in a editorial group as a Art Director. All in Milano.

I remained in Italy after my family moved to other overseas locations and finally to Panama in 1991. My eleven years spent in Milan came to an end after short visit to Panama City and In 1993, I moved back to Panama. It was three years after the invasion and the end on the Noriega Dictatorship..

After living, studying and working for some many years in Europe, my return to Panama required re-adjustments both on a personal and cultural ways; a long process.

My professional career in Panama started by working for three years in the advertising sector. Eventually, I went freelance and founded a commercial studio based mainly on graphic design.

Today, I teach, work and paint and continue my real passion in life…Art.

Throughout my career,  art has help me to apply different criteria to my work efforts, I am oriented to achieve results based on broad defined strategies, rather than a single view. I also have more than 15 years experience in project design, advertising and communication strategies focused on all types of goods, services, corporate images, from all sectors of local and international market.