MIAMI, United States. – The National Council of Plastic Arts (CNAP) of Cuba awarded this Tuesday the 2022 National Prize for Plastic Arts to the painter, ceramicist and sculptor Flora Fong.
The president of the jury that awarded the Prize, the artist Alberto Lescay, described Flong’s work as “solid” and “sustained” in connection with his Asian roots.
Flora Fong was born in Camagüey in 1949). She is the daughter of a Chinese father and a Cuban mother. She graduated from the National School of Art (ENA) of Cuba and was a professor at the San Alejandro Academy of Plastic Arts, from 1970 to 1989.
“I have always painted in Cuba, but being a Caribbean Island, logically I am sensitive to scenes and events such as the endless horizon of the sea, with the fury of tropical cyclones, with the radiant sun and with the speed with which we can travel between each of these conditions”, said the artist.
In addition to being a painter and draftsman, Fong has developed a career as a sculptor, ceramicist, and stained glass maker. Likewise, she has illustrated books, designed fabrics and composed kites using techniques from the oriental tradition.
According to the news agency EFE, Fong’s strokes are derived from Chinese ideograms that reflect the incorporation of elements of that culture with which it is directly related. Among them, numerology and fish, which she has pointed out “symbolize a lot of energy” and inspired her the series “Tropical Fish Tanks”.
Among the most important works of the artist are a collective mural in which she participated in 1995 that is in the Hotel Nacional in Havana and a sculpture located in 1999 on the beach of Varadero.
His series “Emolinos y ciclones”, “Trópico”, “El Caribe”, “Las Antillas y Bahía” have been praised for their peculiar reflection of light, climate, vegetation, and the Cuban and regional environment.
Flora Fong is the third woman to receive the Cuban National Plastic Arts Award, after Rita Longa (1995) and Lesbia Vent Dumois (2019). To date, 27 men have received it.
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