CubaPLUS Magazine

For Diana Balboa, a distinguished figure in Cuban visual arts, being an artist is something that comes from within.

That is why she traded her career as a teacher for that of a printmaker, initially driven by the need to create essential teaching materials such as charts and models.

“I felt I needed a deeper, more professional knowledge to be able to make those resources, and that’s when I began studying at San Alejandro (Academy of Fine Arts),” the artist told this magazine.

“I didn’t have artistic ambition as such, because I loved being a teacher. Pedagogy has always been, I believe, something inherent to visual artists as well, because in one way or another we show things, we teach things. And once immersed in the world of painting, in the world of an art school, it wraps you in, it transforms you, and led me to seek broader horizons,” she explained.

Although Balboa did not graduate from San Alejandro, she completed two years there, during which she connected with fellow artists, teachers, and professors, gaining exposure to engraving techniques and the Experimental Graphic Workshop in Havana’s Cathedral Square.

“This place,” she continued, “is my second home, and sometimes I feel it is my first. Here, where we are now, I have developed all my most important work.

“I have expressed myself through drawing, painting, ceramics. I’ve created installations, experimented with materials—everything that can happen across many years of creation. But, at heart, I am a printmaker. Printmaking was once considered a minor art, much like photography in its time, or digital art today.

People tend to think that because there’s technique involved, it’s a craft rather than an art. But behind the photographer’s eye is the artist; behind the hand, behind the engraving, is the printmaker. That is the essence.”

She emphasized that great masters such as Dürer and Goya began their art through printmaking, which carries a unique dimension: the thrill of surprise. “Printmaking is ungovernable,” she reflected.

“We like to think we control the technique, that when we print, everything depends on our knowledge. But once you print, there is always an element of surprise—it can be a flaw or a triumph. The intelligence of the artist, of the printmaker, lies in knowing how to navigate, to embrace, to build upon those surprises and that unexpected imprint of the process. It’s exhilarating,” she said with passion.

In just over 50 years dedicated to printmaking, Balboa has held 60 solo exhibitions and participated in 200 group shows. Among them, she fondly recalled her exhibition in Guernica, in northern Spain. “It was very moving to present my work in a place with such a profound history. That exhibition carried weight in the realm of feeling, of human solidarity, of human consciousness, of remembering tragedy while also working toward peace—the most important goal.”

She went on to mention many other shows in Mexico, Germany, Sweden, and especially Spain. In Cuba, her work has been exhibited countless times, including at the National Museum of Fine Arts, the most important museum on the island.

Balboa has received numerous awards, among them the Medal for National Culture in 2002, in recognition of her outstanding contributions to the enduring values of Cuban and universal culture.

Looking ahead, she mentioned an exhibition in Madrid to mark her 80th birthday—titled “To Play is to Sigh”—which will already be open by the time this magazine is published, as well as her participation in the upcoming Havana Biennial.

This creator, a true lover of peace, concluded the interview with a heartfelt appeal: “To all the artists of the world, all intellectuals, and all people of conscience: let us say in these times— stop the genocide in Gaza, stop killing children with hunger and bombs.”