Anyelmaidelin Calzadilla Fernandez lives and works in Havana, Cuba. She is a graduate of the Instituto Superior de Arte. She currently teaches printmaking at San Alejandro Academy of Fine Art.
Anyel describes three series of prints here:
Country Plá is a series of small-scale screenprints that use tourist icons and propaganda specific to Cuba. The series title Country Pla: “Flat Country,” suggests an particularly two-dimensional or plain landscape that is without detail and soft like dripping paint. These prints allude to the images of Cuban beaches, streets and landscapes that are converted into postcards, so that the foreign tourist sees only what we want them to see, reducing the details and complexities of a society behind an aesthetic of the sellable.
In the series, En Caché, I combine specific symbols and logos of technology as it becomes an aesthetic object, images and situations that are specific to the context of 21st century Cuba, and in some cases, universal images that point to a past time. The layering of these images and symbols creates a dialogue between each of the various components, and questions the coexistence of new technologies and their place within the difficulties and ideologies that are experienced in daily life. Printing this series as manual screenprints is a handmade approach to portraying digital icons of a graphic nature.
In the series Evasiones, I represent a youthful character, uniformed and without a head, who poses for the viewer with two floating headphones. This character appears to ignore what is happening in their environment – a space overrun with data and information. This environment is cerated using repeating symbols, such as: a rustic vehicle, musical files and logos, and a Cuban street vendor that acts as a symbol of a lifestyle where the necessity to survive is most important. These prints are mixed-media, including screenprinting, stencils, and paint.
