Artist’s Opening Reception, Saturday, September 14, 6-8pm
Couturier Gallery is pleased to announce the return of Cuban painter
and sculptor Carlos Estevez for a solo show. The exhibition of new works,
Living Apart Together, includes large paintings and intricate sculptures
exploring the human psyche vis-à-vis a complex artificial world with
metaphoric imagery and thoughtful witticism. The exhibition runs from
September 14 – October 19, 2013, with an artist’s opening reception on
Saturday, September 14th, 6-8pm.
Carlos Estévez is from the generation of Cuban artists and intellectuals
who, emerging in the 1990s, developed a sense of connectedness to the
world outside of Cuba where social, political and geographic boundaries do
not exist compared to the restricted freedoms on the island. Free to develop
a symbolic language of his own, Estévez uses images from the physical world
to convey his thoughts on isolation and solitude. Present are his trademark
mechanical figures: hybrids of man and nature, combined with elements of
music, marionettes, architecture and telephones. His interest in alchemy and
the paradoxical nature of man are evident in this new series illustrating the
divergences that derail us from our higher self. He writes:
“The history of human beings is a grand paradox. The
development of technologies, the “progress” and evolution is
disproportionate to the development of individual thought and
spirituality. He goes on to state that, “…the magic of art is in its
capacity to communicate from the most remote spaces of the interior
world of the artist to the most intricate places in the soul of the
spectator.”
The painting “Living Apart Together” speaks to the interconnectedness
that we all share, in spite of the lost communication and isolation that
“progress” has made in our lives. Known for his marionettes (both as motif
and sculpture) Estévez presents a symphonic orchestra of 100 musicians
literally embodying their instrument with limbs and heads formally seated
around the “conductor” (which here is a moon) and described by Estévez as
“an allusion to consciousness and thought around which gravitate the
instruments.” Just as in music, such attunement with ourselves, when focused
on a universal theme, has the power to convey complex thoughts that
resonate with the masses in a sublime way.
Estévez further investigates the study of communication with a series of
works featuring rotary dial phones. In the sculpture “Balanced Approach” he
combines an elaborate rigging of a metal weight scale with a plated phone
base suggesting the value of weighing ones words. “Long Distance
Relationships” is a large painting featuring 14 telephones of different styles
with human parts representing the modern phenomenon of isolation in a
social media and device driven world. He writes of this schism, “My paintings
attempt to represent this chaos: the absurdity of life, the lack of
communication, the distance between humans.” It is this type of observation
that motivates Estévez to delve into his world of symbols and create a visual
testimonial to the incongruities of life in a modern age.
Carlos Estévez’s work may be found in numerous museum and public
collections including: Museo Nacional Palacio de Bellas Artes, La Habana,
Cuba; Bronx Museum, New York, USA; Museum of Fine Art, Boston, MA, USA;
Miami Art Museum, Miami, FL, USA; Arizona State University Art Museum,
Arizona, USA; Lowe Art Museum, UM, Miami, FL, USA; Drammens Museum for
Kunst og Kulturhistorie, Drammens, Norway; The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art
Museum, FIU, Miami, FL, USA; Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, CA
USA; Bacardi Art Foundation, Miami, FL, USA; Fort. Lauderdale Art Museum,
Fort. Lauderdale, USA; Association d’Art de La Napoule, France; Acerbo
Histórico de la Academia de San Carlos, DF. México; Kunst Forum Ludwig,
Aachen, Germany; Colección Casa de las Américas, La Habana, Cuba;
Center for Cuban Studies, New York, USA; Fundación Arte Viva, Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil; OMI Foundation Collection, New York, USA; The Farber
Collection, New York.
For further information please contact the gallery at [email protected].
