"Gallery provides haven for Cuban women's art" by Mary Houlihan
May 18, 2007. Chicago Sun-Times
A unique exhibit -- ELLAS: Contemporary Women Artists in Cuba --opens today at the Havana Gallery on the North Side.
Walk through Havana's outdoor artist's market or talk to art students in a cafe or stop in an artist's home and you'll encounter the vast spectrum of work that makes up the Cuban art world. You'll come away with the distinct impression that the artist's life is a very popular one on this island that in many ways still exists in a 1950s haze.
Yes, many Cubans see art as a way of making a buck from tourists, but only the very talented artists capture the attention of foreign galleries on the lookout for new and established talent. One of these galleries is Chicago-based Havana Gallery, whose director, Allison Hill, travels to the island several times a year to meet new artists and check in on old friends.
"La Boda de Mar y Hombre"
("The Marriage of Man and Sea")
by Alicia Leal
"Mujer con Ciudad en la Cabeza"
("Woman with a City on her Head")
by Julieta Martinez
'ELLAS: CONTEMPORARY WOMEN ARTISTS IN CUBA'
To June 3
Havana Gallery, 1139 W. Webster
Free
(773) 549-2492
While Americans aren't allowed to travel to Cuba and most artists have trouble obtaining visas to enter the United States, artworks -- considered a cultural exchange -- are exempt from the U.S. embargo on political or economic ventures. Art dealers, scholars and journalists can apply for a license to travel legally to the island.
In Havana Gallery's early years, artists exhibited were mostly men. Hill remembers only one woman among them. In order to change that balance, she and gallery owner Paul Redmond made a concentrated effort to seek out more women artists.
The result of that search is "ELLAS: Contemporary Women Artists in Cuba," the gallery's first all-female exhibit, featuring work by Tania Chang, Alicia de la Campa, Sandra Dooley, Yoanis Gil, Alicia Leal, Isolina Limonta and Julieta Martinez.
Two days before the show's opening, the gallery floor was covered with unframed canvases. Hill walked a visitor through the colorful swirl of images, all figurative, all in their own way magical in image and style.
The best-known artist in the show is Leal, who is among the top 10 artists in Cuba. A prolific painter, she is known for her surreal, graphic style, which is influenced by the naive painters of the Caribbean.
"In Cuba, there is a lot of public art featuring the most famous artists," Hill said. "Alicia's work is always included."
Chang is from Pinar del Rio on the west side of the island. Hill first encountered her work earlier this year and was impressed with "her sensual portraits of women made from the elements of nature and the seasons."
On her trips to Cuba, Hill visits home studios, colorful workplaces that reveal much about the artists. Martinez's workspace is a tiny room tucked away in a small apartment. The walls throughout are covered floor to ceiling with her whimsical paintings that are "maternal, feminine and sweet." Dooley is a self-taught artist who discovered she could paint by creating Christmas decorations and cards. Everyone loved them so much, she just kept developing her style. She's one of the gallery's most prolific artists.
"Each month, she e-mails a new batch of images of her latest work," Hill said. Political comments, if they exist at all, are subtly woven into these works. De la Campa's mesmerizing paintings often feature such commentary.
"A lot of Alicia's work is about how Cuban people evolve and adapt to the problems and changes there," Hill said. "For instance, when I started working with her, artists were allowed to have a private gallery. Now that is illegal. But they take it in stride and are always ready to find another way to get by."
Hill, also a working artist, says that galleries like Woman Made Gallery and Artemisia Gallery helped her get established early in her career. She hopes to do some of the same for these Cuban artists.
"Working with those galleries helped me get my work out there and move forward," Hill said. "I hope I'm passing that same sort of thing on to the women in Cuba."