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As I look through the window at my workshop, I can see part of the city; I can fly into houses, hear what my neighbors say, I can feel their breath, their weep, their joy. I can hear my eighty-year-old neighbor singing; I can see her naked, weaving her fan as I watch her from my window.
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I wonder if painting from inside of me, inspired by whatever is at my reach and, in some way, related to the history of my life; if painting by finding the hidden power which is directly connected to a real life event, is the right way or tactic to reaffirm the role I should play in the world. I still hope. I hope to unravel memories that float in the air, details of daily routine. I hope to paint for pleasure. A basic-sophisticated human—artistic pleasure As an ex voto, I shall give shape to a dream or any life event. I shall find the right poem, the appropriate phrase, the highest expression of art. I shall have myself from the deepest of me. Will strength and encouragement survive? A child draws for hours, immersed in his own world. Time has stopped for him. (Everything is calm and in silence…) (That is the first reason. The first speech.) Doesn't matter which colour I use, whether I draw a fish or a cloud, a man or a woman to be naïf or expressionist; I keep getting closer to myself, telling my own stories with no hold barred. It may be an African tale of a counter story. Doesn't matter indeed. Why should I stop being a child. As I look through my windows, I can see the night falling and many stars… All around me. I sense it as a spiritual island and…It feels so, so good, I wish it would never end. I am part of the universe and every single change, every seasonal change, every event around me I want to experience intensely. Alicia Leal Fascinated by the mystery and magic of the work of Alicia Leal, the editors of Cuba Absolutely visited the studio-gallery that the artist shares with her husband, painter Juan Moreira, at 262, 8th ST. in Vedado. The spacious, high-ceilinged house with pale walls has typical Creole inner doors that partition off the rooms where wooden and wicker furniture are predominant. The location of the studio, very close to Línea Street?one of Havana's main thoroughfares?and the park dedicated to John Lennon, seems to relate to Alicia's work, full of universal symbols in a harmonious symbiosis with Cuban nature, mythology and idiosyncrasy. Born in the central region of Cuba?where 16th century chronicles depict the presence of hundreds of demons that possessed the bodies and souls of terrified inhabitants, and the site of an important colony of immigrants from the Canary Islands?Alicia admits her debt to the rich popular tradition that spontaneously, and not consciously, emerges in her work. During her beginnings, after graduating from the San Alejandro Academy, the oldest art school in Cuba, she wanted to be an expressionist painter, but did not succeed in channeling her creative urges into this style. The search for her own personal expression led her to a primitive, naïve manner of bringing forth an inner world populated by symbols, tales and the desire to commune with nature. In Alicia Leal's work, in which one can appreciate the appropriation of medieval color theory, spatial layout and a decorative delight in fabrics, floors and curtains reminiscent of Matisse, women play a central role, either providing refuge as in the recurring image of the Virgin of Charity, patron saint of Cuba and eternal protector of mariners and fishermen syncretised with the sensuous Ochún of Afro-Cuban religions; in the poignant Death of Marti, where the Apostle of Cuban independence, in the arms of an angel embarks on the journey to immortality; in Chagallesque flying beings, who refer to other dimensions different from what is depicted; and even in the series dedicated to the circus where women participate in a microcosmic world in which the painter seems to perceive subtle similarities with society, behind the show's lights and masks. Alicia's work is of a markedly narrative nature; her characters speak intensely, not only amongst themselves, but with the onlooker, who becomes an active participant and even protagonist of the painter's unsettling scenarios. Intensely subjective, symbolic, exploring the subconscious and dreams, Alicia Leal's work establishes a magnetic relationship with the viewer; the critics' task is to determine where the secret of this magic is concealed. Perhaps the key lies in the profound humanism and in the warm compassion, admixed with humor, with which Alicia Leal approaches the heartbreaks and pleasures of the everyday adventure of dreaming and living. |
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