Diana Balboa (Cienfuegos, 1945) turns 80 years old, and plans to celebrate it in the most organic way possible: exposing new works in the place that has been for so many years her school, her study and her house: the experimental workshop of graphics of Havana.
With more than thirteen collective exhibitions under his credit, his work has also been exposed, also individually, on four continents (America, Europe, Asia and Africa), and is part of notable public and private collections of Italy, Cuba, France, Spain, Peru, Chile and Colombia.
As my neighbor is, one might think that this dialogue occurred in one of the parks in our surroundings. But not. We have informed ourselves through the Internet, as if she lived in Cuba and I, in Alaska … are the times, insufferable heat and the fact that our beautiful parks have been attacked by neglect and vandalism, and just a healthy bank where you perch to talk.
Did visual arts begin in your native province?
No, from a very young age I live in Havana. I never lost the links with the province, very tied with lemons, a small settlement belonging to the municipality of Rodas, where the moistures of the Damují River are breathed, and Nature is prodigal and beautiful.
There I lived for a short period, which left me the experience of attending a rural school in those distant and difficult times for Cuban peasants. I was born in the field, with the help of a midwife that attended my mother. My first breath was mixed with the perfume of coffee flowers, and the smells of the toast of the grain and the recent casting.
I arrived in Havana with 2 and a half years. I feel a big love for this beautiful and cozy city, which causes you so much nostalgia when you are distant.
I studied teaching when returning from the literacy campaign. Teachers were needed, as many had abandoned the country. I doubted between the school of art and social commitment. Perhaps I could not understand that artistic creation is equally important. Romanticism or foolishness of youth.
The absence of technical resources for teaching (sheets, models …) And my skills, they were compulsively looking for the knowledge of indispensable design, drawing, drawing and color. Then, life placed me in the public health decoration workshop, where I occupied a “artistic painter” square. In that center I met Juan Boza and Roger Aguilar, who also worked as painters, and they were already teachers of engraving. For them, with them, I arrived at Teghnext to the Plaza de la Cathedral.
The bulk of your work is recorded. Was the exercise of this genre due to an act of will or the shortage of materials to perform other works?
I consider myself recorder of my own will. For love of an artistic genre of infinite possibilities and surprising results in the impression of each picture. The imprint of the engraving cannot be summarized in words, even less written; You have to see it, talk, discuss it. It is a genre that for many is “minor”; Perhaps also a feeling of reparation, justice, he approached me to the “trade.” We can be talking about it. I invite you to the workshop of the Plaza de la Cathedral, and we continue with the subject.
Inside the engraving, what is your favorite technique?
There are many techniques: lithography, callography, xylography, collagraphy, screen printing …, but now everything is so mixed, experimentation is so much, luckily, that many recorders assume the challenge of mixed techniques, which is a sum of traditional techniques specific.
How to define your work from the aesthetic point of view? Is it attached to any style or school? Are there recurring issues in your work?
I have worked, in this long way for visual arts, series and diverse themes. Not only in engraving, but also in the genres of painting, drawing and ceramics. I can’t concentrate on a “theme” or a repetitive “way.” I fall in love, I investigate, I venture. The music, thanks to the presence in my life of Sara González for thirty years, was one of the most persistent themes over time.
As for style or school I do not share the idea of putting labels; In art or anything. I am substantially figurative, in case this explains something; Also, “expressionist,” said someone. But I take hand to how much life makes my life in front of me and unleashes the desire to do.
In your long journey through the Cuban visual arts you have alternated with first level figures, some of your same generation. Name five that have had special importance for you, both in human and artistic level.
You put me in a very difficult situation. I still assume the challenge: José Luis Posada, Armando Posse, Roger Aguilar, Frémez and Eduardo Roca (Choco). They have been teachers, friends, brothers; But the list is much longer. The chosen family is very large.
How do you get to the eighth decade of life? Are you still creating? Do you have immediate plans?
Now I am “Playing with the future”, which is the reason for this personal exhibition for my 80 years of life. Thus I enjoy and face old age, which is not old. Playing seriously, doing credible everything kind in a doubtful stage where comfort should not be exclusive reason for happiness.
I still create and, with it, food plans, invitations, proposals, and, as a popular song says, “where they call me, I go.”
Tell us what is going Playing with the future.
I pass the foundation of the exhibition. Please share it. Thus spectators can get an idea of what they will see.
I do it:
The Expo conceptual center is the game. He was born from a look at the ludopathy, and his limits between this and addiction. But in the development of the subject we find other truths that expanded their substance.
An ironic art to alert you; A call to intelligence that arouses the consequences of myths and also show that the game is a basic need, not just fun or evasion.
It also serves to understand the world and those around us; Build preferences, develop skills from childhood.
It is emotion, contained hope, and/or frustration of the inner being, but also, in a certain way, persecution of happiness.
As children we play the hiding place, the grabs, the houses, the doctor, the wheels or rounds … we invent other games. And we still play, creating, executing their teachings, precepts, issues … every day. Everyone chooses their decks, hands, media, but we continue as “players”, “apostators.” And so we say: “At this point in the game”; “Game, gentlemen”; “The letters on the table” ..
Therefore, we summon the spectators-players of this exhibition to find the reward, the risk, to recover the lost, to anticipate what will happen, to bet, to enjoy everything as an addiction to live with faith and joy what they call future.
I only ask tolerance. And remember: The perfect is the enemy of the good.
That: Playing with the futureDiana Balboa’s visual arts exhibition with the collaboration of Alicia Leal and Betzi Arias. Curator: Yamilis Brito.
When: From this Friday to August 30; Monday to Saturday, from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm
Where: In the experimental graphic workshop of Havana. Callejón del Chorro, Plaza de la Cathedral, Old Havana.
How much: Free entry.
