EXHIBITION PRESS RELEASE

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CARLOS  MANUEL SOTO
PAINTING: CUBA & AMERICA

JUNE 21 - AUGUST  2, 2003

Brad Cooper Gallery is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of painting by Cuban artist
Carlos Manuel Soto, from June 21 through August 2, 2003.
The Gallery is located at 1712 E 7^th Ave in YBOR CITY. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday,
11am until 5pm. (Please call 813-248-6098 for additional evening and weekend hours.)
An opening reception will be held Saturday evening, June 21,  from 7 to 9 p.m. 

Since August 2001, Carlos Manuel  has been in exile in the United States enjoying the freedom of artistic expression, confronting his dislocation and learning from the routine of American culture. 

Living and working as an artist for more than a decade, he was condemned to ostracism as one of the many Cuban intellectuals, forced to live with persecution, harassment, and detentions by the political police of the Cuban government.  For more information on repression in Cuba by the government: www.cubafacts.com/Polsys/government_structure4.htm

Soto graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences  from the Superior Pedagogical Institute (Enrique Jose Varona) in Havana City.  Then in 1991, from the same school he was forced to drop his bachelor studies in fine art for being a student whose ideals formed political and aesthetic viewpoints not in accordance with the institution.  As an independent artist while living in Cuba, he was increasingly prevented from exhibiting in public facilities funded by the Cuban State as well as in privately owned galleries.

Clearly Soto’s images reflect upon the themes of exile, culture, and identity.  Soto explores the manner in which displacement reinforces and transforms cultural identity.  The exhibition includes both work from his days under totalitarian context, and several selections from the recent experience of living with the American ideology. His work was first shown at Brad Cooper Gallery in Seven Latinos, Side by Side,  September of 2002.

Brad Cooper Gallery
1712 E 7th Ave. YBOR CITY  (between 17th & 18th St)

11am - 5 pm / Wed – Sat  &  by appointment.