Ciro Quintana
Ciro Quintana (b. Havana, Cuba, 1964) Resided in USA since 1993, work and live in Miami, Founder of Puré Group, Quintana is one of the most iconic Cuban artists of the 80s. Throughout his career, his work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Cuba, the United States, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Finland, Russia, France, Germany, Peru, Venezuela, among other countries. Recent shows include: “Resilience The Other Cuba (Minneapolis, 2015), and “Pulse Art
Fair” (New York, 2016), Beyond the collector Cabinet, Outside of Cuba, Contemporary cuban art exhibition at the Chateau Vulleriens, Switzerland (2018), Art Palm Beach contemporary art fair (2018), Scope Art Basel, Switzerland (2017), Artist of the purgatory, Kendall Art Center (2017).
His work is part of major collections such as, Ludwig Forum for International Kunst Collection (Cologne, Germany), National Museum of Fine Art,Cuba, Pori Taiden Museum, Finland, Lowe Art Museum (Miami), Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art (latinamerican collection), Museum of Modern Art of Santo Domingo, Cisneros Fontanals, Kendall Art Center collection (Miami),Collection (Miami), The Mosquera.
ARTIST STATEMENT
“The Art of making Art about Art & Life, A chronicler of my time”
From the very beginning my work was a “search for a system “, into which I could fit everything with a language apt to express what I wanted to say while including the viewer in the whole process”, this my sound like a statement by any artist but in my case becomes quite a specific statement, I use the comic strip, the art history legacy, the pulp art, the scenes from an old movies, the icons from the pop culture, the parody and the use of the traditional realistic representations which in some cases is just an instrument to blind and trap the viewers into the travel of the narrative of the language of the painting. My paintings on canvas, drawings ,collages and installations, are understandable, above all as hypnosis by images, reality, in this cases is an unreachable fiction, forever controlled by images; art, a pretext for the spectacular (re)production of effects, of images, of signs.
My paintings emphasize the effect of theatricality representation, artifice, parody, and unreality, wishing as an artist that my work became to the viewer like a feather bed – that you fall into it and it catches you.
My works are like characters in my life; they have a personality just as real as characters in a novel or in a movie ,an open stage where, the public, the artist, the form, the story and the concept just coincided in a battle for survival having the porpoise of create a work where the viewer wouldn’t forget and walk away, a place where he feel invited to travel in the narrative of the work.