An exploration of life through art.

Carlos Ayala has been creating all his life, with chaos surrounding him, it made sense to have a creative bubble. As a little kid, his mom provided the art supplies he needed, giving Ayala the space to spend hours creating art. Ayala never chose to be an artist, it just happened organically.

At the age of 15, he decided to study animation because he would watch Cartoon movies, but what really excited him was how they made the movies. He enrolled in art instruction school to study animation where he had to create a character, this gave life to Mr. Button, a gray teddy bear with a missing eye and full of scars.

Mr button is based on an accident he had when he was a child. Ayala’s dad was smoking one day but didn’t know the kid was behind him. He turned around and burned his eye with the cigarette. And thus the first scar of many was marked; symbolic and physical scars that shape who we are.

Ayala continued creating and learning, at the age of 17 he enrolled in the Art Students League in San Juan Puerto Rico, where he fell in love with painting. Since then, he has not put down his brush. At the age of 19 he began to learn the basics in tattoo art, but had to keep it secret from the art world, because they would not perceive him as a serious artist. The years passed,he kept exploring his creativity and in his early 20s made his way into Viota Gallery, one of the most prestigious galleries in Puerto Rico at the time. He slowly started to get notoriety for his work. Once his fame grew, he decided to enroll in the School of Fine Arts of Puerto Rico where he expanded his knowledge in art.

His love for different mediums grew, pushing his artist exploration, until he got back to tattoos. This time he didn’t see tattoos as just a job, for him it was another canvas to express his creativity in the same language but different mediums. Ayala has been creating nonstop until present time where he found the opportunity to tell the complete story of Mr Button and be able to materialize his creative world. Ayala imagines a world where his characters will come to life by expanding his creative bubble.