About Cyril Maza

Cyril Maza is both an engineer and an artist. He is a licensed professional engineer (P.E.) in Texas, and a registered civil engineer in the Philippines.

Although he started painting only in 2008, he has demonstrated his remarkable talent as an artist since childhood. He has a natural passion to build and to create, and is very much fascinated by activities where ingenuity, imagination, and creativity come into play. His childhood hobbies included drawing, playing mandolin, and solving puzzle games. He also liked to play with common household items, such as paper/cardboard boxes, glass/plastic bottles, wooden blocks, and even books. He would lay them all out on the floor forming a pattern that resembles a city, complete with buildings, roads, and parks. He would be so engulfed in his own little “world,” designing and building his own “city,” that you could leave him all alone, playing quietly by himself (or sometimes with his younger brother) for many hours.

His passion for building/creating and his fascination of the physical sciences led him into pursuing a degree in civil engineering. He received his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines in 1992.

Cyril is the kind of worker who puts his mind and heart in whatever he does. As a dedicated engineer, he had his mind and heart focused on his job. His attitude and dedication to work has never been left unnoticed; for in 2005, he was awarded “Employee of the Year” by his employer, Petrocon Arabia Limited, in Saudi Arabia. That award is an undeniable proof of his undying commitment and dedication to his profession as an engineer.

In 2008, despite his normal heavy work load in the office, he managed to come up with his very first painting on canvas ever. For most people, it was just an ordinary day. But for him, that day marked a very important milestone in his new-found career as an artist. It was a day of rediscovery, the day when he rediscovered himself as an artist after many years of doing engineering work. He made a self-portrait, followed by two more portrait paintings. He was so engulfed with what he was doing that he finished all those three paintings within just a week, painting and getting to bed late at night, and then reporting back to work as an engineer the following day. He had never intended to pursue a painting career though, as those three were the only paintings he made that year. He did not do any painting in 2009. His next painting came out in 2010, which is a couple of years later.

When he started to paint again, in 2010, his wife Lorna was so amazed when she saw what he was doing that she started to paint herself. Lorna’s enthusiasm rekindled the artist’s spirit inside him. Painting became their favorite pastime from then on. During weekends, they would get down together and work side by side, both individually and as a team (working on the same canvas).

Cyril and Lorna had no formal art training and had never attended any painting classes, other than their art classes in elementary and high school. They taught themselves how to paint and have developed their own styles and techniques as they continued to paint more and more. Cyril draws inspiration from the works of great Filipino painters such as Fernando Amorsolo, Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo, and Juan Luna.

Lorna has always been an art enthusiast. She likes collecting seemingly worthless items and turning them into unique works of art. She had collected fruit and vegetable seeds of varying sizes and color. She had them dried and put inside long empty bottles, which she now displays in their living room. She has decorated their apartment with unimaginable and unique art works made from materials such as chocolate wrappers, used stamps, stones, strings, and even crab shells. Lorna started painting with Cyril in 2010, and has also been coming up with her own original art paintings. Interested parties may also view Lorna's paintings at the following URL: http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/lorna-maza.html.