Osmeivy Ortega
January 18, 2014 – February 20, 2014
An exhibition of woodcuts, linocuts, silkscreens and lithographs from Cuban artists Eduardo Hernández Santos, Osmeivy Ortega, Aliosky Garcia, Augusto Orlando Lam Marimónand and Anyelmaidelin Calzadillo.
Liz Chalfin and Sheldon Carroll traveled to Havana in November to conduct a workshop in Polyester Plate Lithography at the famous San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts, one of the oldest art academies in the Americas. This exhibition features the work of five artists they met during their visit.
Eduardo Hernández Santos, photographer, collage artist and printmaker whose work concentrates on the gay and transgendered communities in Havana, and the struggle to live and be an artist in contemporary Cuba.
Osmeivy Ortega Pacheco’s work is highly symbolic and highlights the social struggles of the Cuban people. The reduction linocuts in this exhibition are printed on traditional mop rag materials. Much of Osmeivy’s work takes printmaking into the realm of sculpture and installation.
Anyelmaidelin Calzadilla’s silkscreens explore technology in Cuban society and often uses humor as well as symbolic historic references. In the series “Pla”, Anyel is working from tourist postcards of Havana and extracting information, creating an abstracted image that implies a scene that is simultaneously disappearing and becoming.
Aliosky Garcia works primarily in woodcut and linocut. His figurative prints speak directly to issues of struggle, longing, disconnectedness and duplicity faced by the Cuban people.
Augusto Orlando Lam Marimón’s work uses the imagery of the cane fields as a stand-in for the Cuban people in his colorful lithographs.
Rounding out the work of these five professors is a sampling of the polyester lithographs by both students and teachers that were created during the workshop Chalfin and Carroll conducted in November 2013. The students were eager to learn and dove into a new process with enthusiasm and a sophisticated aesthetic, the result of a great art education.
The work in this exhibition comes from the collections of Liz Chalfin and Sheldon Carroll, Zea Mays Printmaking and Red Trillium Press. Steve Daiber of Red Trillium Press has an extensive collection of Cuban prints available for exhibition and sale.