ARTIST STATEMENT

As an artist I am greatly driven by the ideas of heritage, human experience reflected through memories, and modernity expressed through technology. Being a first generation Cuban-American, I continually find myself balancing the traditional beliefs of my family with more modern American ideology. My work reflects this balance in its subject usage.

I use images of my grandfather and my mother primarily because they are the most influential in the shaping of my beliefs about my culture and country. I also use geographic images of Cuba to illustrate not only the physical but also ideological essence of my heritage. Other subjects I use that balance the Cuban traditional beliefs with American modernity are images from mass media such as recreational and social advertisement, television, and urban “scratch” music.  

The composition of my work reflects my interest in how we most accurately record and express our human experiences through memories. In the earliest forms of my current work I commonly juxtapose semi-transparent stenciling of subject with sprayed text and solid lines or semi-opaque color fields. Throughout my works development the clarity of the images and text degenerates and the color fields bleed into chaotically controlled dripping of liquid mediums such as latex, oil, paint marker, and wood stains. The transition from initial transparency and layering of subject usage towards a deconstruction of clarity echoes human retention of memories. Memories at first are clear to our subconscious specifications, fragmented images and words combined to record a personal experience. Over time, these experiences, these memories loose their clarity but not their presence in our minds.

The idea that technology is synonymous with modernity is one that fascinates me. While paint is the primary medium in which I work, the ground for the paint fluctuates between the organic and digitally synthetic. I push the boundaries of what we consider ‘technologically modern’ with the application of my subjects to their various grounds. Throughout my work one would see the use of stenciling and graffiti-like spraying of paint, dripping rather than direct application of liquids, and computer manipulated and printed grounds for these liquids. The balance between technologically generated imagery with organic medium usage is synonymous with the balance of modern and traditional subjects of my heritage, and the balance between the retention and loss of memories.