Visual Arts

Visual Arts

Carlos Torres and the Art of Drawing with a Camera Lens

By Viviana Díaz Frías

Despite the controversy around photography’s inclusion within the world of fine art, there are exponents of this art form who show both through their work and their words that theirs is an artistic expression of reality through the lens of a camera.

An Artist’s Transparent Secret

By Roberto F. Campos, Photos: Publicitur (Norlys)

Buildings are are often compact structures behind which lie pieces of reality and scattered ideas. But despite their apparent solidity, façades can become so translucent that their most intimate secrets are exposed.

Antonio Hernández: Art Saved Me

By Glenda Arcia

What happens behind the scenes moments before going onto the runway, introspection before facing the public, fears, personal conflicts. All these are captured by Antonio Hernández’s lens in dressing rooms, an exposure that puts aside superficial beauty and aims to uncover individual mysteries.

Isabel Santos: Wax made Poetic

By Glenda Arcia Photos: Emilio Herrera

Young girls with fluttering wings, boys on horseback, aflight, dancers as well as little devils - all emerge from the hands of Isabel Santos once she starts working with wax. The material becomes poetry, and each of the figures expresses Santos’ feelings and experiences, as a sculptor, as a mother, as a woman.

GTG, Art that breaks the drum

By Mercy Ramos / Photos: José Meriño

Down the same streets once plied by the legendary Cuban bookie and brothel owner Alberto Yarini, and just a stone’s throw from the house where Cuba’s National Hero José Martí was born, a new art gallery with the potential to make its own history has emerged: the Galería Taller Gorría (Gorría Studio/ Gallery), at 214 San Isidro, in the heart of Old Havana. It’s a place meant to focus on the creation of contemporary art, in an environment that encourages experimentation and the search for new forms of expression.

On Cuban Art in Panama, as told by Nivaldo Carbonell

By Rigoberto Otaño

Over the last few years, Panama has grown closer and closer to Cubans. Whether this closeness is due to its geographic proximity, or the similar climate and culture, on more than one occasion the Isthmus has been a mandatory reference point. Of course, art is no exception. For some time, the news of a gallery in Panama dedicated to promoting young Cuban artists has been making the rounds, especially locally. By now, the project is firmly established and we spoke with its director, Nivaldo Carbonell.

Heidi Hollinger Loves Havana!

By A.J Twist*

Heidi Hollinger is having a busy day. She has just spent the morning and afternoon photographing Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s whirlwind tour of Havana and she is changing into a cocktail dress to attend the Canadian Ambassador’s reception at the Cervecería Antiguo Almacén de la Madera y el Tabaco on Old Havana’s waterfront. Unbeknownst to her, the evening will also involve an impromptu invitation to the opening of a new Indian restaurant nearby only to be followed by a mojito mixing lesson and some salsa dancing at the Bodeguita Del Medio. This woman never stops; welcome to the go-go world of Heidi Hollinger!

Jorge Perugorría in Universal Cuban Mode

Jorge Perugorría is an intrinsically audiovisual being. The actor, director and painter adds a fourth axis to his creative life - music – which, in his own words, “has always been present in my life (...) and has been a source from which I have fed, not only with rhythms and melodies, but also with poetry, humor, and ideas”

Raúl Corrales

By Margarita Ruiz (Taken from the presentation of the Raul Corrales book)

When we look at photographs taken by Raúl Corrales, not only do we see a faithful account of historical events captured with the agility of a reporter, but also an aesthetic dimension arising from sentimental ties with the subjects.

Lidzie Alvisa Jiménez, constantly searching

By Ana María Ruiz Photos: Courtesy of the artist

Lidzie Alvisa Jiménez (Havana, 1969), whose original work is created with much experimentation and constant renewal, has traveled through photography, sculpture, installations and performance, from perspectives where limits are diluted and the concept takes center stage.

Photo Feature: Lynne Cohen

High level contemporary Canadian photography has found in Lynne Cohen one of its best examples. Considered among the most renowned artists of her expression at international level and recipient of a vast pedagogical experience in Canada and Europe she was awarded the Governor General's Award in Visual Arts and Media Arts in 2005.

Cosme Proenza: The Whole World in One Being

By Pedro Quiroga Jiménez / Photos by José (Tito) Meriño

Cosme Proenza has the gift of seeing things in depth; of appreciating colour as few can, and of fully enjoying life through everyday blessings.

Santos Toledo: The Power of Graphic

By Pedro Quiroga Jiménez / Photos by Jorge Pérez and the Artist's Archives

No one is indifferent to Santos Toledo's work. The first contact inevitably creates an irresistible complicity with his style, centered in typography. His most recent personal exhibit: Design, my language at the Carmen Montilla Gallery in Old Havana - displaying his forty years of artistic career - is living proof of it.

Cigar Legends

By Tino Manuel / Photos by Ramón Iglesias Centeno

Crowned as supreme by connoisseurs, who consider it the best in the world, the Cuban “cigar of cigars”, according to experts, is the hand-rolled Premium for its relationship with the soil, climate and the experience of its cigar makers.

A Saint for the Arts

By Ivet González Lemes / Photos by José Tito Meriño

In Cuba Alejandro is the patron saint of fine arts who, for over 190 years, has presided over an academy of youngsters aspiring to share in the prestige of one of the oldest institutions in Latin America.