Santiago De Cuba | Ateneo Art Cuba

Art Work by Reinaldo Pagan Avila

Reinaldo Pagan Avila, Santiago de Cuba Comments Off

Oct 022010

Fish Devour Man

One of the most outstanding artists in Cuba today, Reinaldo Pagan Avila from Santiago de Cuba is a most prolific painter. He has painted since he was a child. His parents divorced and he grew up with his mother in the hills of Santiago in a little town called Vista Hermosa. Pagan studied art at the José Joaquín Tejada Art School but is self taught in water colors and many other artistic techniques which he learned from the books he read.

His artistic style reflects the styles both of surrealism and expressionism, conveying messages of humor, satire and tragedy. Japanese elements, religious icons and people are often the subjects of his works of art.

This is one of my favorite paintings by Pagan, the image of drowning people swallowed by fish in a cruel sea. It is much like another painting of his, Juventud Rebelda with victims in a rough sea, in a boat made of newspaper in the dark night. Make of it what you will, this art by the Cuban artist Pagan is bound to provoke thought and squeamishness.

Yuri Moreno

Santiago de Cuba, Yuri Moreno Comments Off

May 182010

Yuri Moreno

The Cuban artist Yuri Moreno was born in 1972 in Cuba and graduated from the José Joaquin Tejada Academy in 1990, specializing in sculpture and painting.

Yuri exhibits his work internationally and has worked and exhibited with other artists in the Dominican Republic. He is a member of the artists’ group Cara-jo (a short form of the word Cara Joven – which means “young face” in Spanish) in Santiago de Cuba. He formed this group with his two friends who are also visual artists, Orestes Campos and Reinaldo Pagan – other artists whose works you can see at Ateneo Art.

In Cuba, his work has been shown in Havana, Santiago de Cuba and Holguin. His art and sculpture can be found in collections, both personal and public around the globe.

Yuri’s work reminds one of the art of Rousseau, but conceptually, his are more symbolic in arrangement. Every element by itself would mean nothing if painting it as a single object, but when he organizes the ideas together, a new meaning is conceived by the juxtaposition of another object.