Jose Ventura was born in the 1955 in the village of San Pedro Nonualco, El Salvador.  He went to school in the village, and drove his teachers to despair by covering his note books with drawings instead of doing the work that he had been assigned.
He moved to the capital, San Salvador, when he was 17 in order to attend the art school.  Three years later, armed with a diploma in architectural drawing, he joined the National Museum of Anthropology of San Salvador to work first as a graphic designer, then as a model maker.
All the while, he strove to develop his art and took part in many exhibitions.  He won a scholarship from the Organization of American States and went to study museography in Mexico, then returned to his country where already, the political situation was deteriorating.
In 1980, because of the political vilence, he was forced to flee to Mexico, and he came to Canada a year later.  Since then, he has been painting and developing his artistic vision.  Growing up in a traditional Latin American village has been a determining influence on his work as an artist.
He spent 1991 in Paris where he haunted museums, painted and exhibited.  Since returning to Canada in1992, he has exhibited in Vancouver, Edmonton, Kelowna, Regina and Toronto.
He has also designed and executed many stained glass pieces, some for churches and many for private collectors of his work.  He has just completed the stained glass windows in the Catholic Church on Dewdney Trunk Road in Maple Ridge, BC.  He has perfected the blending of two traditional techniques of glass work, fusing and painting, to create pieces which bear the full flavour of his style and colour.
At present, he lives in Vancouver with his family where he shares his time between glass work, ceramics and painting.