Two Cuban Artists at Havana Gallery "
July 15, 2005. La Raza Newspaper's "Arena Cultural"
Havana
Gallery located on Webster Avenue in Lincoln Park has been, since 1998,
the only gallery in Chicago to specialize in Cuban art. The gallery is
distinctive because it has shown over the last six years almost exclusively
the art of painters who currently live and work in Cuba. In past years
they have even invited artists to attend their exhibitions, creating the
rare opportunity for cultural exchange between Cuban artists and the Chicago
community.
Havana Gallery started out showing work by a small group of young artists, from what is called in Cuba the "90's generation." Today the gallery represents more than 25 contemporary artists from various generations.
The weekend of July 23 and 24, coinciding with their annual party for the Sheffield Garden Walk Festival, Havana Gallery will open an exhibition of new paintings by Alicia Leal and Juan Moreira, two of the most important painters in the history of Cuban art in the last fifty years. The show will be their first together in Chicago.
Juan Moreira (born 1938) is a graduate of The School of Art and Design of Havana (1958) and completed further study at San Alejandro Fine Art Academy in Havana in 1963. As a student he specialized in painting, printmaking and drawing. His extensive body of work is influenced by the styles and forms of Hispanic and African culture.
Moreira's paintings begin with clean, elegant lines that he fills with gradated planes of color and an almost glowing light. The images are often human figures combined with mythical animals, totems and idols that are symbols of man and woman as creators of life, integrated with nature. Today Juan Moreira is one of the most important figures in the panorama of Cuban culture.
His wife Alicia Leal (born 1957) also studied art at San Alejandro, graduating in 1980. She is a prolific painter who began showing her work in 1984 in Havana and quickly earned national and international recognition.
Alicia Leal's work is known for it's graphic style, influenced by the "naive" painters of the Caribbean. Her art is filled with surrealist images from her dreams and from her observations of Cuban society (its culture, religion and politics.) Her paintings are in bright colors applied cleanly and exactly, and her subjects strongly defend the sexuality and creativity of the feminine world. Her work has been influential to the next generation of contemporary artists from Cuba.
The work of these two famous Cuban painters is in the permanent collections in museums and galleries around the world. The artists painted the collection of paintings that will be shown from July 23 to August 28 especially for Havana Gallery.