• On Quite a Journey
It’s not too often that an undergraduate is commissioned to complete dozens of paintings for one of Washington, D.C.’s largest restaurant/nightclubs. And the undergrad in question, Yazmany Arboleda, wasn’t even an art major. In 2003, he painted 56 canvases — many of them as big as 5 feet square — for H2O (formerly called Hogate’s) on D.C.’s Southwest waterfront. With some help from classmate Stephanie Duhau, Arboleda managed to do these paintings while also progressing toward his 2004 bachelor’s degree in architecture from CUA.

“These paintings set this restaurant apart from any other in the area because of their vibrant, energetic style and color,” says Abdul Khanu, owner of H2O. For his part, Arboleda says the paintings of exotic landscapes, dancing women and jazz musicians represent “a journey through bliss, the place where cultures convene and journeys become endless.”

Called “a tornado” and “an exclamation point” by his friends, Arboleda also designs jewelry, has won photography awards and has studied clothing design at New York’s Parsons School of Design and Milan’s Instituto Marangoni.

This year he went on to finish a master’s degree in architecture at CUA. His thesis involved designing the Museum of Fashion and Textiles — a Manhattan skyscraper whose color and shape would change constantly to symbolize the ever-changing world of fashion. Three hundred people, including 17 runway models, showed up for his thesis presentation — the largest audience for any event at the School of Architecture and Planning in recent memory, according to Eric Jenkins, assistant dean of the school.

“Yazmany will be famous for something someday,” predicts Jenkins. “He’s got fantastic ideas, a good sense of design and knows how to market himself.”

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Revised: August 2005

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The Catholic University of America,
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