Karla González Horta (Matanzas, 2000) works as a specialist at the Council of Plastic Arts and at the Génesis Gallery, in her hometown. He has completed a degree in Sociocultural Management for Development at the University of Matanzas this year. Despite the short time she has been dedicated to photography as the main means of artistic expression, she is already showing notable results in different styles, which to date range from images constructed with electronic means, to studio photos, through documentary or street photography.
So far he has made five personal samples. These are: Between the skin and the void, 2023 (Acaa, Matanzas); Sempiterno, 2024 (Génesis Gallery, Matanzas); Virago, 2024 (Uneac, Matanzas); Meliorismo, 2024, two-person with Denny Santana (City Conservator’s Office, Matanzas), and Inmigrante, 2024 (Artys Gallery Bar, Matanzas).
Among other recognitions, he has obtained the temporary creation scholarship from the Center for the Development of the Visual Arts (2023), the prize from the Uneac Plastic Arts branch in the ACAA Amateur Hall (2024) and the Witness Scholarship (2025).
Once the formal presentations have been made, we give you the space to introduce yourself and show part of your work.
Bridges between the everyday and the extraordinary
I start in the world of photography unexpectedly. While I was studying Sociocultural Management for Development, academic internships led me to participate in the project ““Wonders of childhood”. There, between games and community workshops, I discovered that images could be silent witnesses to stories that would otherwise be forgotten.
It was an invitation to capture the essence of a moment: the laughter of a child when receiving a gift, the look of a mother as she watches her child open up to the world. It was then that I had my first camera—a special gift from my mother—and I understood that my curiosity about visual art had mutated from a simple hobby to a vocation.
To begin on this path, I enrolled in courses taught by the Cuban Association of Artisan Artisans of Matanzas, under the tutelage of two key figures: Ernesto Cruz and Julio César García, from whom I learned to see beyond the frame, to identify the problems that latent in our society and to use photography as a means to give them visibility.
This period was fundamental in defining my artistic vision.
I try to make my visual language dialogue with reality and invite debate. From then on, I began to participate in provincial salons and photography contests.
The first recognitions germinated my confidence, which led me to accept invitations to group exhibitions in galleries.
The year 2023 marked a decisive milestone. My works began to be exhibited not only in group or personal exhibitions within the province, but also in the capital and beyond the country. Participating in international spaces allowed confrontation with different audiences and aesthetic currents.
Photography is for me a bridge between pain and hope. It is a living tool with which I express personal concerns. Internal dilemmas are translated into images that dialogue with the viewer.
I open my empathy towards others. When I observe the suffering of others (pain, anguish or misfortune), I embrace it with my lens and transform it into tangible light.
I search for meaning in a hostile world. It is a tracking of responses to adversity. I foster human relationships, I share my visions with friends and family to strengthen ties and I also try to teach my son that the simple can be extraordinary when we look at it with curious eyes.
This approach allows me to see “where no one sees,” and reveal invisible layers of everyday reality; also document lives, eternal fragments.
Photography also functions as a personal archive. I capture everyday moments with my loved ones. I record events that remain recorded in the collective memory. I leave a visual trace of the cultural legacy we share as a family. Thus, I save “a part of who we are” for future generations.
I have many artistic references. They are Kara Walker, Nan Goldin, Tina Barney, Marta Sanz, Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Sebastião Salgado, Vivian Maier, Graciela Iturbide and Raul Cañibano. His works are safe harbors where I can constantly explore new techniques and deepen my own language.
My family is a community of musicians. Piano, violin and singing are the instruments I grew up with. That art shaped my aesthetic sensibility even before I discovered photography.
Although I studied music, I never found full satisfaction until I found photography as a definitive means to express who I really am.
My work has developed mainly between the modalities of conceptual/artistic photography, where I play with symbols and visual metaphors; and installations to create immersive environments that invite the viewer to actively participate.
Now I also want to venture into documentary photography, always maintaining the emphasis on old age, capturing wrinkles as narrative constellations; childhood, to reflect invisible promises and emotional purity; authentic human expressions that are expressed without filters or artifices.
The objective is to continue building bridges between the everyday and the extraordinary, between the visible and the invisible, offering visions that inspire deep reflections.
The series
Vestiges It was born out of the need to give visibility to the problems that plague my country: its deterioration, oblivion and love for the nation that shelters us. It is a complaint, not only from a political perspective, but also from a social one; the questioning of each one as a citizen, the desire to recover what once characterized us.
Everlasting It is a very important project for me, because it documents a very difficult stage of my life: the breast cancer that my mother suffered, and which had an impact not only on her life, but also on the way of thinking and acting of my family, including me. From my memories I record that process, his death and the meaning that the tragic event had for me.
Allegories of a childhood It is, possibly, the most personal set, and the one that fills me the most with satisfaction. It is intended as a long-term creative exercise to document my son’s childhood and the lives of the beings around him.
In-yo It is a collection that I developed for the collective exhibition Tiresias, mirror and shadowshand in hand with the “Woman and Society” project. It investigates identities and social problems, gender and the various expressions of sexuality that are recognized today.
Virago marks the beginning of my career. It is the first thing I exhibited in a gallery and in which my work began to take on a more personal approach. It deals with gender issues, but not only from the shadows and despair, but also from inner strength and resilience. The series emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, in the midst of my son’s pregnancy.
Cuba, Havana, faith and its people it’s a work in progress. It is the result of the work developed during the Witness scholarship in the documentation of the processions of the Virgen de Regla, the Caridad del Cobre and the Cabildo de Regla. My aspiration is to continue investigating in that direction, the spirituality and beliefs of the people, in Matanzas and in as many places in the country as possible.
