He received a B.F.A. from Rutgers University in Newark, NJ and M.F.A. from Hunter College in New York. He currently lives and works in New York and New Jersey. His preferred medium, oil painting, is used as a tool of complex research and creation. Using black and white exclusively, he imitates the effect of grisaille with a precision that leads to graphic illusions, frequently resembling black and white photographs. Bastidas achieves a meticulous level of detail in his paintings, produced only by these two colors and their nuances, without needing support from other palettes.Bastidas is the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship as well as a Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant, among other awards. He exhibits widely in the United Sates and is represented in the collection of numerous museums.