VENTURA : Young Artist Draws on His Family Ties

Gerald Sequeira calls his art show “ Mi Familia y Yo ,” or “My Family and I.”

But nearly all of the 27 paintings and sketches in the exhibit at Ventura High School are self-portraits of the 17-year-old artist or pictures of his father.

“I just do whoever’s in the house,” said Gerald, who has Ventura High’s first one-person show. “I tell them to, ‘Please, stand still. Don’t move so much and please look at the same object for a while.’ ”

His father is the most agreeable subject, Gerald said. “He always falls asleep when I’m drawing him.”

But his mother rarely stays still long enough, and Gerald’s three sisters are often not home. When no one else is around, he paints himself.

Yet his self-portraits are so diverse that they seem to portray different people.

One brightly colored painting shows Gerald in a straw hat surrounded by a lush, jungle-like background that resembles the artist’s native Nicaragua. Some sketches depict Gerald wearing glasses and a somber expression. In others, he is without glasses and relaxed.

Every time Gerald looks in the mirror, he said he sees himself in a new way.

Indeed, the high school senior has some starkly divergent aspects to his personality. Although he loves painting and drawing, which he began as a freshman four years ago, he also excels at math and science. He plans to become a mechanical engineer.

In addition to the dozen self-portraits in the show, Gerald has 12 pictures of his father, one of both of his parents and two of his younger sister Elisa, a sophomore at Ventura High.

He dedicated the display to his family because, as he wrote in a statement posted at the show, “my art wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them.”

His devotion to his family springs partly from the difficulties they have faced since immigrating here six years ago.

His father was an attorney who got on the wrong side of the Sandinista government, which was then in power in Nicaragua, Gerald said. Fearful for their safety, the family moved to Los Angeles.

For their first year in the United States, the Sequeiras, who had previously had a large home of their own, shared crowded rental houses with other families.

They moved to Ventura 4 1/2 years ago and now have a place of their own. But Gerald’s father works as a motel custodian, the best job he could find. His mother is a nurse’s assistant at a convalescent home.

“It has been hard for them,” Gerald said. “They just sacrificed their own life for mine. I adore them for that.”