The Cuban artist Áisar Abdalá Jalil Martínez (Camagüey, 1953) He is exhibiting his most recent work at the Miami Hispanic Cultural Arts Center, a collection of paintings of various formats that have migration as their central theme, a global phenomenon of which our country is a painful example.
The exhibition, curated by Alaen Ledesma, brings together pieces that traverse the already highly codified aesthetics of this artist, who pays tribute, with very personal figuration, to a kind of Creole surrealism where the satirical gaze is almost always present.
Áisar, who trained in the island’s artistic education system, obtained the category of Master of Fine Arts at the Repin Academy of Fine Arts in Leningrad in 1983. About his work he has said:
“My art is born from admiration and urgency. I paint with hands full of memories and with a heart in protest. Each stroke is an attempt to understand beauty and, at the same time, to transform it into a scream. I paint to remember, but also to awaken. In Exodus I speak of the eternal movement of people – of those who, due to wars, by faith, by hunger or by dictatorships, are forced to leave everything behind. I do not portray them as victims, but as bearers of dignity, history and hope. My characters walk, fly or sail. They are bodies in transit, sometimes half men, half animals (…). “They are beings that transform to survive, that cross seas and deserts with the strength of someone looking for a place in the world.”
This artist comes, on his father’s side, from a working-class Lebanese family that settled in the town of Francisco Guayabal – his small homeland – in the 40s of the last century.
Until now it has exhibited his work in personal exhibitions in Havana, Miami, Montreal, San Salvador, Algarve, Almancil, La Rochelle and Aveiro.
Áisar, in addition to being a painter, is a notable graphic artist and ceramist. In recent years he has lived between Brazil and the United States.
That: Exodusexhibition of paintings by Áisar Jalil.
Where: At the Miami Hispanic Cultural Arts Center. 111 SW 5th Ave #201, Miami, FL 33130.
When: Until February 10. From Monday to Saturday, between 10:00 am and 5:00 pm.
How much: Free entry, without prior appointment.
