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Edwin Gil knows he’s lucky.

There was a time in his life when he hid from his father’s drunken rages and pained looks at his skin — the color of milk-flavored tea — every time his dad told him flatly, “You’re not my son. You’re a different color.’’

And there was a time when he was kicked out of the house, tried to kill himself and held his good friend Gustavo in his arms, with Gustavo’s words drilled into his ears, “I don’t want to die!’’

Gustavo had been shot in the head.

According to Gil, that’s part of his life story. He knows it sounds, as he says today, “crazy.’’ But he sees them as the “hard moments’’ that molded him, the moments born from growing up poor, neglected and abused many hours south of us in Colombia.

Gil has used therapy to recover. But he also has used art to articulate. And to him, art saved his life.

Gil now lives in Charlotte, far from the streets of Colombia where he wandered as a rudderless teenager, constantly asking himself, “What do I want to do?’’

He’s now 37, a successful artist exhibiting this month for the first time in Greensboro, at Studio B. It’s the funky spot at the bottom of a South Elm alley where our city feels more like Manhattan than Mayberry.

Gil is one of Charlotte’s busiest painters. In his nine years in the Queen City, Gil has created murals and artistic programs that link two cultures — American and Latino — and show our shared passions, beliefs and identities as immigrants.

Fat chance? You never know. We live in a country where the idea of immigration has turned into an emotional shouting match that pits the American ideals of opportunity against the American need to feel safe and secure in an English-only world.

Yet ask Gil about the immigration debate, and in a quiet voice, accented by his Colombian upbringing, he has an answer.

“Who are the immigrants?’’ he said the other day. “The people here or the people coming here? We’re all immigrants. People are from everywhere. But we don’t remember the past. We just remember the present.’’

In government lingo, Gil is a permanent resident on his way to U.S. citizenship. He now uses his paintbrush and passion to bridge two cultures, spark some understanding and silence the question Gil sometimes hears in his new home of North Carolina.

“So,’’ someone will ask. “What part of Colombia is Mexico?’’

Gil has helped launch Charlotte’s first festival of Hispanic culture, its first film series of Hispanic films and a nonprofit designed to bring American and Latino cultures together through art.

He has painted a mural he calls “Home Sweet Home,’’ using an American flag and the hands of 2,500 Charlotte residents – young and old, rich and poor, black, white and brown — to promote tolerance and unity.

He also has painted another mural he calls “Our Flag, Our Country, Our Home,’’ which this month will be shown in New York City and next year will be presented to the president of Colombia.

The mural shows the Colombian flag, created from the hands of Colombian immigrants, on the eve of the country’s 200th anniversary next year. The intent: to promote pride and peace, among displaced Colombians, for their home country.

Even for Gil.

At age 27, he left Colombia. He left behind a tough life and a family he believed didn’t love him. He was the son of a mechanical engineer, the oldest of six.

At 15, Gil was kicked out of his house. At 17, he tried to kill himself by swallowing rat poison — twice. And it only got worse when Gil lost his friend and nearly lost his life.

One time, he sped away from shots fired by gun-wielding motorcyclists. Another time, he was stuffed in the trunk of a taxi and heard two thugs say, “How do we kill this guy?’’ For some reason — Gil says today he doesn’t know why — they let him go.

That time in the trunk convinced Gil he had to go. He came to the United States with two suitcases, a letter from his sister Yubeli and $10,000 in his bank account.

He couldn’t speak English. He didn’t even know how to use a pay telephone. But he had his sister’s letter, which told him she loved him and she was proud of him. Gil still has that letter.

Gil first came to Miami. He moved to Charlotte to work in his uncle’s art gallery. There, he really discovered his painting, his life’s work — and his therapy — in his brush strokes.

He’s better. He’ll tell you that. He’s learned English by reading the newspaper — with a Spanish/English dictionary at his elbow — and he understands his mission as an artistic advocate for tolerance and peace.

But he also understands now how to interpret what he calls his “hard moments.’’

The beauty of life, Gil says, is in its imperfections. It’s how we use them. That, he says, is important.

Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com