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Words don't come easily to Ralph Gonzales.

His thoughts, though, are crystal clear, visible behind shining eyes.

He wants to share them and slowly, almost painfully, squeezes out, "I . . . love . . . art."

Later, Gonzales sits at a table, a large piece of paper in front of him, colored pencils in hand. All limitations vanish as he hunches over and draws, building shapes into a flawless composition.

He knows color, and he confidently reaches for paints that will lift the drawing to a higher plane. He mixes and layers them in surprising combinations over the lines. He adds texture and graphics with scratch marks that slice through one hue to reveal another. He ties the artwork together with a flurry of brush strokes.

It's done. It's beautiful.

Gonzales looks up with a big smile that says it all.

"Art has given Ralph an ability to express himself that he didn't have before," says his sister Erlinda Saavedra. "He shows his emotions and feelings through his artwork. It gives people a chance to see more and know more about Ralph than they would normally get upon meeting him."

Gonzales suffers from Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, a form of epilepsy that hit him at age 6. Fierce seizures left Gonzales developmentally disabled, with impaired speech and mobility.

Despite that, he has become one of Albuquerque's best artists, a prolific abstract painter whose early canvases evoke Jackson Pollock, an artist Gonzales was unaware of until recently.

"His feeling was, `Look, that guy's doing work like I do,' " says Sue Hermes, exhibit and portfolio manager at VSA Arts of New Mexico, where Gonzales takes art classes three days a week. "He was already there."

Gonzales is a star at VSA. His paintings are a mainstay of the center's respected gallery exhibits, and he is shown at the Juvenile Justice Center and other public buildings. His work will be in a coming show at O'Niell's Pub and in the Great Southwestern Antique Show Aug. 3-5 at the Albuquerque Convention Center. Hermes hopes to get him a solo show at Los Griegos public library.

Gonzales has sold many pieces at prices ranging from $40 to $500.

"I have always liked Ralph's sense of color," Hermes says. "He uses different combinations that work really well together. There's a freshness to Ralph. He's a natural abstract expressionist."

Gonzales, 48, discovered art five years ago when he arrived at VSA from Adelante, an agency for disabled people that focuses on life and job skills.

"His interest there was fading," Saavedra says. "He wasn't getting the freedom to express himself."

VSA has an extensive art program taught by seasoned instructors in large, vibrant studios.

"Getting into VSA was a turning point for Ralph," Saavedra says.

He landed in a painting class taught by Deborah Jojola, who has since left VSA. She watched with interest as Gonzales dripped and splattered paints of all colors across sheets of paper.

"Deborah was very taken with Ralph," Hermes says. "She saw the direction he was going in and got him bigger pieces of paper. She gave him some simple instruction, to wait a few minutes between colors and let them dry. He got it, and from then on he blossomed."

Hermes says she loved coming to work on a day Gonzales was in the studio.

"We'd have plastic dropcloths all around, and we'd drape him up so his hands were free and just let him go," she says.

Hermes says Gonzales has an innate sense of color.

"When Deborah was here, we would set him up, and he'd tell us what colors he wanted," Hermes says. "We wouldn't direct him."

Gonzales's splatter paintings are densely layered and brilliantly colored, and most are huge in scale. They were done in tempera at first, but because tempera flakes, VSA gave him more-expensive acrylics, which are permanent.

"We gave him better paper, better supplies and a bigger space," Hermes says.

Gonzales did splatter paintings for about three years and has since branched out into printmaking, mixed-media and sculpture.

"I think Ralph got it pretty quickly that we all liked his artwork," Hermes says. "His confidence is high, so he's trying new things."

His new paintings are more simple and subtle than the splatter pieces, with larger shapes and blocks of color, but because of Gonzales' skillful composition, they're bold, intense and haunting.

Gonzales' teachers say he's a focused and motivated artist who loves being in class.

"He amazes me," says instructor Sam Bautista. "Sometimes he gets to levels of art that I can't believe. He's serious."

Instructor Jack Pressly calls Gonzales independent and single-minded.

"He doesn't let people manipulate him," Pressly says. "He knows what he likes to do and enjoys getting right to it. If you look at artists who work outside here, they don't have people telling them what to do. They know what they want.

"That's what I admire about Ralph. He's such a hard worker, and that's what it takes to be successful."

Hermes says Gonzales's work isn't careless.

"He thinks about what he does," she says. "Each piece has a beginning and an end; he knows when it's completed. And he names his pieces."

Gonzales lives with his parents, Eloy and Mary, in a neighborhood not far from VSA in the North Valley. Mary brings him to the center in the morning and picks him up in the afternoon.

"He's so happy to be there," she says.

She says his success has been good for the family.

"We're very proud of him," she says. "He's been a wonderful son."

The Gonzales family is from the Las Vegas, N.M., area, where Ralph was born. They moved to Newark, Calif., when he was 3 and to Albuquerque a couple of years later, in 1967.

Gonzales went to Buena Vista Elementary School, where he was a sharp student.

"He would come home singing all the songs he had learned," Mary says.

He suffered his first grand mal seizure in first grade.

Gonzales entered special education and graduated from Manzano High School. He loves sports and participated for years in the Special Olympics.

Mary Gonzales says her son may have difficulty communicating, but his mind "was and is brilliant."

"We forget a lot of things and have to ask him," she says. "He remembers all his teachers' names, even from elementary school."

Gonzales had listened intently to the conversation going on around him for this story. He made comments and corrections, rarely missing a beat.

At one point, a painting of his, "Clouds with Sun," was mentioned as being a favorite of many people.

Gonzales asked to be taken in his wheelchair to the VSA gallery where it hangs, so he could see it.

He smiled when he got there, remembering the piece and clearly proud of it. He said he loves art because it lets him express himself without speaking.

"Ralph," someone said. "If a person asked you what you do for a living, would you say you're an artist?"

Gonzales struggled, reaching deep for the word.

"Yes."