Eduardo Roca (Choco)

Cuban painter and engraver Eduardo Roca, alias Choco, was awarded the 2017 National Prize for Visual Arts on November 3, for his valuable contribution to the development of visual arts on the island.

The artist has a degree in Art History from the University of Havana and has developed an important teaching career in art institutions in Cuba and Spain.

Choco’s work is exhibited in museums and galleries around the world, such as Cuba’s Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes; the DuSable Museum of African American History in Chicago, the United States; the Museo de la Estampa, in Mexico; that of Kochi, in Japan; the Miró Foundation, in Palma de Mallorca; and Swedish institutions.

Among the awards the artist holds are the Engraving Prize of the 1977 National Youth Visual Arts Exhibition; the Medal of Honor at the 1981 Graphics Exhibition, Bulgaria; and the Grand Prize of the 4th Triennial Engraving Institute, Japan, 1999.

Within Cuba, he was recognized in 1995 with the Order for National Culture, and, in 2000, he won the First Prize in Japan’s Kochi Engraving Biennial.

He is familiar with the printing technique – particularly collagraphy – and masters it like few others,. Neo-expressionist elements appear in his creation, where the most intense Cubanness is always present. That is evident both in the physical features of his human figures and in the skin textures and atmosphere of each composition.