CUBA Show

TOM IS A BOY, MARY IS A GIRL: MEMORIES FROM THE GARDEN

The meeting for the first time in the same exhibition space in Trinidad, Cuba of the work of the Canadian artist Kurt Walther and the Cuban Guillermo Esquerra is a reason to reflect on the deep connections that underlie any creative process and that make possible that works or artists from different places and times they have certain formal and conceptual similarities even without the possibility of previous references or mutual knowledge. This project of joint exhibition discovers for the viewers those fine roots connected under the surface, that way of seeing and interpreting the reality common to many cultures that reflects the kaleidoscopic patterns of shamanic hallucinations in altered states of consciousness.

Here we embark on a "journey" through the depths of the soul.

In an effort to project the inner world of the psyche and thus "manifest the soul", the series of Kurt

Walther rehearses, after simple pictorial gestures derived from the randomness of the stains of paintings on paper, a joyful creative game that generates life in shape of trees, cities, characters and animals that inhabit a universe in constant vibration, in a perpetual movement of transformations and disturbing metamorphoses.

Observing its "drippings" and colored spots contoured by subtle lines of black ink, there

emerge a variety of rhythmic patterns and subtle visual melodies that reveal a certain musical influence. With suggestive titles and simple visual resources Kurt proposes a different way of understanding ecology, human relations, family, etc. In his work, everything is like a great symphony where chance and order alternate continuously to create the universe itself.

The work of Guillermo Esquerra involves a holistic and fractal conception of the observed reality.

Iterations in a complex plane that define chromatic patterns and recurrence relationships, charged with

symbolism and energy. Behind their multi-face characters, intermingled lines and contrasting bright

colors, we witness a kind of psychotropic party that recalls the art of the Huichol Indians of Mexico or the ritual decorations of the Australian aborigines. Figures and landscape intermingle and advance one over the other in a border of black lines that further complicates that intricate network of infinite points, concentric circles and surreal geometries. Guille wants to immerse the viewer in an avalanche of visual sensations that provoke a leap towards other possibilities of perception and consciousness.

Among all the facets of human action, art possesses that unique quality of transforming gestures, objects and simpler and more bland forms into something significant; with their own sense and beauty. These two artists play and experiment with language and pictorial technique, establishing a polysemic visual discourse through the anarchic and free recreation of immediate reality. In their works the dimension of theinfinite becomes tiny and accessible to our gaze and the microscopic acquires extensions that transcend understanding or reason.

Thanks to the Cubanocanadian project that bets on intercultural communication and the promotion of good art, we can enter this exhibition as one who enters a party of colors and shapes; a journey that invites, at the same time, reflection and enjoyment. In short, a journey within ourselves.

Atner Cadalso