Opening Reception, Saturday 15, 6-8pm
Renowned Cuban painter and sculptor Carlos Estévez will have his fifth solo exhibition at Couturier Gallery, March 15 – April 26, 2008, which will include recent oil paintings as well as sculpture. These works continue Estévez’s investigation of human psychology along with universality and nature. Through these current works Estévez’s represents both the physical appearance and the interior complexities and dualities of human nature.
The depiction of human form and thought are prominent themes in Estévez’s oeuvre and evident in this new body of work through figures and forms that signify the universal effect of every individual’s action. In Voces interiores, the gesture of the rising hands, open palms and elevated head of the human figure suggest despair. On the other hand, the thoughts or interior voices, are represented by the smaller figures depicted in the torso of the central figure. In this composition the figure seems to be questioning something, reinforcing statements of interior complexities and the dualities of human nature.
Estévez’s beings are rendered either in the form of a machine, animal or nature, as shown in Clockwork love, suggesting the human relation between nature and technology. In works such as La relatividad del espacio and Prestidigitacion mental the human body merges with the mechanical world of machines of various forms echoing Francis Picabia’s imagery of mechanical portraits.
Estévez’s recent body of work delves into those free acts of being that ultimately we cannot control, acts that are preordained or commingled with the unpredictable acts of others
that affect our existential destinies. Describing his work Carlos Estévez says:
…each artwork is a battle field where things that are going to happen are a mystery, a magic moment where all demons and angels from nocturnal and day dreams, from human passions of all kinds, from the most sublime to the most banal, memories, thoughts, premonitions and visions, as well as the unforeseen contribution of the subconscious all meet.
The existential quality of the works in this exhibit come from Estévez’s Diaspora experiences of living for a year in Paris as a recipient of an artist-in-residence grant at the Cité des Artistes, followed by several months living and painting in Miami (where he currently resides). His recent peripatetic existence, combined with the insularity of living in Cuba, result in a personal perspective reflected in the paintings:
These artworks produced between Havana, Paris and Miami are the realization and testimony of my existential gravitation…They constitute an infinite juxtaposition of my experiences, dreams and thoughts transformed into images by the work and the grace of creation. They are the most recent reports of those irreversible processes that are part of our existence.
Carlos Estévez’s work may be found in numerous museum and public collections including Arizona State University, Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ; Bacardi Art Foundation, Miami, FL; Colección Casa de las Américas, La Habana, Cuba; Colección Deposito Bagali, Museo de la Valija, Palazzo Piazzoni, Vittorio Veneto, Italy; Center for Cuban Studies, New York City; Drammens Museum for Kunst og Kulturhistorie, Drammens, Norway; Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen, Germany; Museo del Barro de América, Venezuela; Museo Nacional Palacio de Bellas Artes, La Habana, Cuba; Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale, Fort Lauderdale, FL.; Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, CA.
