SOL: Cuban Exhibition
Gurevich Fine Art welcomes summer into the gallery with SOL, an exhibition of work by Cuban artists; Jairo Alfonso, Francisco Núñez and Dalvis Tuya. The exhibit introduced us to ideas both political and social from Cuba, a country that is at once tantalizingly close and yet shockingly unfamiliar to us. SOL opens June 6th at 7:00 pm and is on display until June 28th.
The extensive and stylistically diverse collection of art presented in SOL reflects the intoxicating beauty of the region and those who live there while presenting the techniques and significance of each artist.
Jairo Alfonso's work investigates the mystery of personal experience to become an exercise in awakening memory and reflection. By balancing objects in tippy stacks in his coffee and ink drawings he explores the symbolism inherent in objects found in daily life. These objects are consumed through their use and then are not discarded. The results are boxes or teetering piles full of various disarrangements. Earlier works from Alfonso illustrate the conflicted history of his country. Layers of collaged religious iconography act as backdrops to painted barbed wire rail lines and filmstrips. He uses these multi-media artworks to create visual stories set around the manner in which each piece characterizes generations, civilizations, and human groups.
Francisco Núñez paints abstract portraits. Powerful faces furtively emerge beneath strong slashes of vibrant paint against starkly composed canvases. The abstract and the figure are blended with a sense of minimalism. Yet the faces are still dominant, full of energy and depth. By exploring each face we are embarking on a journey into the innermost soul of the subjects of his paints. By emphasizing the eyes Núñez creates a direct dialogue between the work and the viewer, thus producing a gaze in each work that is irreplaceable.
Dalvis Tuya's works involve taking a step back to see the full picture emerge, and a step forward to see the tiny, repeated patterns of smaller images that form the whole. Recreating mass behavior and ordinary objects of everyday life Tuya expresses humanities preoccupation about time and immortality and how the individual is inseparable from the society. Using simplistic tools, his minimalism pieces evolve into a sketch that goes from a micro icon into its macro form creates a dialogue about our place in society.
As with any group of visual artists, even those who are united by their country, there is often little to cohere the artists. Yet in SOL the prevailing harmony among these contemporary artists is in how they unite the conceptual and the aesthetic to tell the stories of life in a place that is closer than it seems.
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