Kendall Art Center

Tamayo's passion for Havana is visceral and stamps all of his oeuvre. I would say, it stamps all of his life. Tamayo could paint the world but he will always be expressing his condition as a citizen of Havana: the city, its sea, its myths, its personages who are themselves in turn the city (from an Apostle to a baseball player, from a madman to a pimp, from a sorcerer of harmony to a wizard of words, from a vampire to a hustler); they literally cram his overflowed imagination, and they take shape and come alive in a body of work which, with a universal look, has a Havanan conscience.Leonardo Padura

N stor Arenas (b. Holgu n, Cuba, 1964). He graduated from the Higher Institute of Art (Havana, 1990). Arenas have widely exhibited his work at solo exhibitions and group shows throughout the U.S., Cuba, Spain and China. Recent exhibitions include, 12th Havana Biennial (2015), "Legopaintings" (Lyle O'Reitzel Gallery, Miami, 2010), Arteam ricas Art Fair (Miami, 2009 and 2010), Shanghai Art Fair (China, 2010). His work is part of several private and corporate collections such as, Forrest Capital (Miami), The Mosquera Collection (Miami), Jorge Reynardus Collection (New York and Sarasota), Leigh University (Pennsylvania), Universidad de Valencia (Spain), among others.The work of N stor Arenas immerses us in an imaginary where memory, impulses and desires merge. What we have won and, also, everything we have lost. Losses and profits that return with the appearances of things and affections that are close and, at the same time, spooky. Images that are close, but already diffuse, distant landscapes and, at the same time, domestic that tremble, say Walter Benjamin as "constellations between alienated things and exhaustive meanings."When the work of Arenas is seen in perspective, a warning must be made on the pronounced iconographic trajectory. An iconography deeply tangled with the history he personally lived in Cuba, as much as the one he had to live through outside of. His landscapes, neofigurative and abstract at the same time, project visions where the historical and the personal biography cohabitate. The same way in which he presents the capitalist world. "As I mentioned previously the work of Arenas submerges us in an imagination where memories are smelted, our drives and our desires. That which we have obtained, also, everything that we have lost. Losses and gains that return to us with the appearance of things and personal belongings and at the same time phantasmagorical.Dennys Matos.

Fireworks Carlos Est vezAt the beginning of 2016, Carlos Est vez received an artistic residency at the McColl Art Center for the Arts + Innovation in Charlotte, North Carolina. This multidisciplinary space offers artists, among other facilities, ovens for ceramics which caught his attention immediately. In the four months that he spent in the center, he produced more than 200 ceramic works in those ovens. "It's definitely a charming place, -said Carlos- full of ghosts and spirits that do not rest. From the very beginning, I connected with that energy and it was my source of inspiration through the magic of fire. The ovens and their alchemy took care of the rest to keep me emerged in experimentation throughout the whole residency. The works that I am showing here are the results of that experience." The more than 60 ceramic plates that he created are presented now at Kendall Art Center in an exhibition titled "Fireworks." These elegant, expressive images reveal Est vez's artistic and emotional universe and explore many of the themes used in his paintings, such as Anatomy, Architectures, Dancers, Moons, Metamorphosis, Demons, Spirits. Several ceramic plates from the Rodr guez Collection and other private collections are also in the exhibition. Carlos Est vez is one of the artists closest to the Kendall Art Center, because his presence and friendship with the collector. By presenting, collecting and preserving these significant ceramic achievements of Carlos Est vez, the Center hopes to develop a deeper understanding of cultural values and traditions. The Rodr guez Collection aims to educate and create an ongoing dialogue with the public in the concepts of contemporary art and its role in society.Henry Ballate M.F.A.

Rub n Torres Llorca (b. Havana, 1957). He studied at the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts and at the Higher Institute of Art, both in Havana. He exhibited at Volumen I (1981), the iconic exhibition that revolutionized Cuban art. Some of his solo exhibitions are: "One Of Us Can Be Wrong And Other Essays" (Juan Ruiz Gallery, Miami, 2012), "The Names Have Been Changed to Protect the Guilty" (Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, San Juan, 2008), "Una historia para ni os basada en un crimen real" (Centro Cultural Espa ol, Miami, 2007), "Easy to Built/Modelo para armar" (Frost Museum of Art, Miami, 2006). He has participated at several group exhibitions such as, I and III Havana Biennials, Sao Paulo Biennial (1989), "Kuba OK" (Stadtische Kunsthalle, Dusseldorf, Germany, 1990), "Iconocracia" (CAAM, 2015), "ConTexto" (Museo Universitario Universidad de Antioquia, Medellin, 2016). His work is part of the collections of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Havana), Ludwig Forum Fur Internationale Kunst (Aachen, Germany), Museo del Barrio (New York), Miami Art Museum, Frost Museum of Art (Miami), The Rodriguez Collection (Miami), among others.The Rodr guez Collection is privately financed by Leonardo Rodr guez and his family and is one of Miami's largest, privately owned Cuban contemporary art collections. The collection reflects significant artistic developments in contemporary art by established artists from Cuba, U.S. and abroad.

The three great Spanish-speaking Caribbean islands: Cuba, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, represented at the Kendall Art Center, with a sample of works by some of their most relevant contemporary visual artists. "The repeating Island", curated by Roxana M. Bermejo, brings together creators who in all cases are exponents of a history that surpasses the picturesque and the provincial, as well as a misunderstood origin that is inserted in cosmopolitan and avant-garde art without giving up their own postulates and searches, without depriving themselves to continue delving into the traces of heritage mystical rituals, of inherited rhythms of extreme sensuality, of landscapes with colorful highlights and icons and native traditions shared by these three territories in whose current different identities and common features are discovered.Their visual vocabularies seem forged with a truly exuberant vital energy and a baroque style that led Carpentier, through a very particular poetic, to establish the concept of the "Real Maravilloso". In these works, the spirit of projecting the soul of the region never diminishes, which smells like a mixture of coffee, rum, tobacco and sweat of Ta nos, Blacks, Creoles and Mulattos; a mixture that compares with a crucible where they merge and arrived in the Caribbean from different parts of the world, contributing ingredients to the Ajiaco. Aldo Men ndez