Carlos Guzmán was born in Luquillo, Puerto Rico. In 1986, he enrolled at the University of Puerto Rico, where he obtained a bachelor's degree in fine arts, majoring in sculpture. A year later he attended the workshop of master Pablo Rubio, and polished his technique in the fields of sculpture, drawing and painting. For eight years he worked as Rubio's first assistant, collaborating in several   important commissions, among them Cristales de Paz (Peace Crystals) at Seville, Spain, and Encuentro en Tiempo y Espacio (Encounter in Space and Time) in Seoul, Korea.

By 1991, Guzmán's work began to be noticed. He received a prize for his sculpture from the Puerto Rican Ateneo in San Juan, and participated as a volunteer assistant at the First Sculpture Symposium of the University of Puerto Rico Botanical Garden. In 1993, he was appointed   Resident Artist and Professor at Altos de Chavón, Dominican Republic. Subsequently, in 1996, he was chosen by a jury to be Puerto Rico's representative in the Second Sculpture Symposium of the UPR, where he would work with sculptors of international stature, such as George DuBon and the Argentinian Leopoldo Maller.