Eliseo Art Silva was born and raised in Manila, Republic of the Philippines. He received formal art training at the Philippine High School for the Arts, National Arts Center where he graduated with the Visual Arts Award. After immigrating to California in 1989, he received his BFA at Otis College of Art and Design and painted more than twenty public art outdoor murals in Seattle, California, Philadelphia, Maine, and the Philippines. He received full scholarship to Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine during the summer of 2002, and received his MFA in 2003 at the Maryland Institute College of Art, under the auspices of Grace Hartigan, director of the Hoffberger School of Painting.

His work has received numerous awards including the Award of Design Excellence from the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, the Purchase Award from Liquitex Excellence in Art Student Grant, and The Joan Mitchell Foundation, Inc. 2003 MFA Grant. His work has been exhibited in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Hawaii, Canada, Philadelphia, North Dakota, and New York.

Silva is a weaver of history and heritage. In his work, he imparts stories that are grounded upon layers of culture, creating a kind of contemporary folk art that attempts to find the border between mass culture and contemporary realism. Thus, the artist indulges in a scientific type of cultural exploration that is both factual and provocative, unearthing the past as a means to herald the future.

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