Orestes Campos | Ateneo Art Cuba

El gran come candela

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Nov 202010

El gran come candela

This painting is by Orestes Campos of Santiago de Cuba. It is an oil on canvas and measures 69 x 54 cm. Campos painted this work of art in 1999.

“El gran come candela”, translated from Spanish means, “The Big Flame Eater.” Campos has tried to portray in this painting the big flame eater as one who devotes his life to the Cuban revolution and therefore receives the material benefits of the Revolution. Many artists in Cuba suffer from poverty until they begin to sell their works of art to tourists and then beyond the borders of Cuba. This work of art is a parody of what he calls the circus and belongs to a series of paintings by Campos called “El Circo” – the Circus.

Los Esposos Palofini by Campos

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Aug 272010

Los Esposos Palofini by Orestes Campos

“Los Esposos Palofini,” by the Cuban artist Orestes Campos of Santiago de Cuba was painted in 1994.

This large painting is made of oil and canvas.

Similar to Jan Van Eyck’s painting, “Giovanni Arnolfini and his Bride,” painted in 1434, this painting reflects the artist, no longer in situated in the Renaissance palace of grandeur but in the wooden sheds in which some people now live in Cuba. The subject is no longer marrying his elegant bride dressed in silk and velvet, but rather, must choose from a selection of wooden puppets which hang on a wall. Gone is the glory of the Renaissance of van Eyck’s painting, replaced by the reality of the modern world where politics contributes to the poverty in which the Cuban artist must create to survive.