Remnants of a tropical downpour in the courtyard of the French Alliance in Cuba They are the prelude. Then, there are the open doors of a space at the Prado headquarters of the institution converted into a gallery, and which exhibits 10 pieces of art united by spirituality.
Inside there is a boisterous public, mostly young, who in front of each work validate pictorial cosmogonies, reinterpret strokes and deconstruct the very particular worlds that inhabit them. Miriannys Montes de Oca.
Before, the artist talks about the rain and emphasizes the mystical property that is associated with it to cleanse souls and scenarios.
This personal exhibition -Miriannys points out- arrived unexpectedly and brings together works that represent a narrative journey from 2015 to the present, with all those artistic facets through which his painting has passed.
Another little before Laurent Burin des Roziers, new ambassador of France in Cuba, referred that the exhibition constitutes an approach to the personal poetry of a multifaceted creator, who moves between the practice of drawing, photography, painting, sculpture, engraving and performance. A versatility when creating combined with her interest in the dynamics of the human being from a spiritual and affective point of view.
“With a career in constant ascent, the artist defends a visuality where the characters, events and times are based on an eminently theatrical scene. These imagined, recreated or imitated scenographies place us before a story in which the imaginative and the symbolic, the psychic and the human, are mixed…
“The artist opens the doors for us to a strange, fearful, anguished world, where reality and illusion, life and death, are similar, meet, are confused to translate the bearable or unbearable weights of being.
“This theatrical component is precisely the line that identifies the whole of his work. His scenes are starred by recognizable characters due to their attire or ghostly characters, who vibrate and grow larger, by colors and shapes that seduce and trap and by a structured temporality, in which we find that reflexive component that characterizes his creative discourse”, refers the diplomat .
Meanwhile, the girl with red curls and a blue dress with small flowers opens her eyes in surprise and thanks; she thanks with the tenderness and simplicity that resides in true artists.
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In the Vestigios exhibition we enjoy large brushstrokes of yellow, arranged in backgrounds and characters. This recurrence, fused with a theatrical operation, highlights areas of ambiguity in the painting, as well as sensations that connect with creativity, sensuality and the energy that is received before the contrasts that exist in each piece.
With yellow, Miriannys builds creative geographies where it invites empowerment, as well as respecting our authenticity.
We see brushstrokes of this tone in The Decapitation of Medusa (2020, enamel on canvas, 100 by 100 centimeters), a referential piece where the mythical woman is powerfully rewritten, even after her body is disarticulated.
Meanwhile, in After the Rolling Stones (2016, enamel on vinyl, 250×125 centimeters) yellow occupies almost the entire pictorial work. In it, the author highlights real and symbolic tears, after a unique musical event of her kind in a country far from the usual contact with the big cultural industries.
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Four girls, cubalibre in hand, discuss in front of Primavera about representations and messages. The young women passionately assume personal interpretations, and thus ratify art as a unifying bond of subjectivities. A painting and the vision of an artist are resignified by its public.
In this piece from 2016 (enamel and oil on vinyl, 125 by 80 centimeters), Miriannys breaks with recurrent colors and tones in the rest of the creations that make up the Vestigios exhibition.
The artist’s strokes portray this season with a dull blue. In the painting, three kneeling figures turn their backs on the audience and look, perhaps reproachfully or enviously, at a fourth lying on the ground. This last one is surrounded by warm details that seem to bloom.
Primavera is a representative piece in the imprint of a creator who draws intimate spaces where her characters reach greatness; and they insist, likewise, on being part of stories that are born from the experiences lived by its author or from what she imagines and dreams.
With Vestigios, the gallery of the Prado Palace of the Alianza Francesa continues its commitment to good young Cuban art. Until next November 12, the exhibition space will host the 10 paintings that make up the personal exhibition. Works that pay tribute to the creative stamp of an author who feels immeasurable respect for the authentic.