Efrain de Jesus was born in Puerto Rico and raised from the age of five in New York City’s East Harlem. After serving in Vietnam he attended Brooklyn College and received an MFA from Pratt Institute in 1979. He also participated in the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program, and was awarded studio space at P.S.1 in Long Island City in 1978 and 1979. He has exhibited in numerous one-man and group shows in the New York City area and in central Vermont, and lives in the Bronx, New York, and Chelsea, Vermont.

Although his earliest paintings are abstract, recognizable subjects and suggestions of narrative begin to appear in his art by the late 1980s. He made his first small constructions in 1986 as reminiscences of his family's involvement with Santeria, and his inclination toward enigmatic and mysterious subjects may have been sparked by the presence of symbolic figures and animals in their home. His art is at different moments eerie, tender, whimsical, and—more recently—satirical, reflecting both a remarkable pictorial imagination and wide expressive range.