Esteban Ramón Pérez was born in Los Angeles, California and spent time working in his father's upholstery shop throughout his early years.
The experience informed Pérez's aesthetic vision and he eventually incorporated scrap materials from the upholstery shop including leather, velvet, feathers, and agave fiber into his multimedia works.
He recalls that he grew up in a community that was filled with murals depicting scenes of "ranching, Mexican folklore, and Pre-Colombian and Catholic iconography.
I'm the son of immigrants, I am first generation Chicano, and my parents are both from Mexico.”[2] Pérez earned his BFA in Art at CalArts, Valencia, CA in 2017.
Like the earlier exhibition Somewhere In Aztlan, the titles of Ni De Aquí and Ni de Alla (Spanish phrases that together translate into English as "neither from here, nor from there") seem to reference Pérez's Chicano identity, invoking concepts of liminal or borderland identities written about extensively by Chicana theorist Gloria E. Anzaldúa.
Throughout his time at Yale, Pérez's MFA work was also exhibited in a variety of group shows including Fantasies and Fallacies: 35 Mexican and Chicanx Artists under 35 (2017) at the Consulado General de Mexico in Los Angeles,[5] Perverse Furniture (2019) at Artspace, New Haven,[6] Contextual Proportions (2109) at the Jenkins Johnson Projects in Brooklyn, New York,[7] andYale Painting & Printmaking MFA 2019 at New Release Gallery.
"[10] During his fellowship, Pérez exhibited his work in the group show NXTHVN: Un/Common Proximity at James Cohan Gallery in New York, NY with Allana Clarke, Alisa Sikelianos-Carter, Daniel T. Gaitor-Lomack, Jeffrey Meris, Ilana Savdie, and Vincent Valdez.
[17] Pérez's work was exhibited in the traveling group show The Future is LATINX, which debuted at Eastern Connecticut State University's Art Gallery.
[18] The exhibition traveled to Clark University's Schiltkamp Gallery under the title Latin + American from March 15 – May 9, 2021[19] and Three Rivers Community College in Norwich, Connecticut from August 30 – October 1, 2021.