Ein lebendiger Stil schillernder Malmotive

– ANTONIO FERNÁNDEZ SEOANE – Kunstspezialist –

Umfasst einen Schaffenszeitraum von etwa sieben Jahren seines kraftvollen Gemäldeschaffens, Ernesto García Peña präsentiert jetzt, in Zurich, eine wohlüberlegte Auswahl seines künstlerischen Talents von seinem jüngsten Schaffen bis zur Gegenwart, in dem üppige Körperformen auf lebendige Weise miteinander verbunden sind, zweifellos erotischer Stil voller Liebe. Sein Stil erstreckt sich auf Bereiche von ästhetischem Interesse, die noch nie zuvor erforscht wurden, wie das tierische Element der Pferde in Poderosos (Kraftvoll) and in the bullfighting magnificently portrayed in El último canto de la bestia (Das letzte Lied des Tieres), or in music, present in Después de la siesta (Nach der Siesta) disguised precisely as bullfighting dreams…

Nineteen pieces in very diverse two dimensional formats are gathered together in Island Lyrics, the perfect title for an exhibition in the ArteMorfosis Gallery of Cuban art. The pieces contain the most representative characteristics of this great artist of color: blues, oranges and pinks, soft but with enough visual impact to make us shudder. And the apparent white, which totally covers the painting surfaces, in some of them as almost imperceptible element of subtleties denounced by the reality in nuanced themes that could likewise be ideal surfaces to discover his energetic and well-controlled drawing. Or the dazzling black (not value, but true color) that makes the figures fuse in daring abstract works Semilla (Der Samen) and Tanteando el cielo (Testing Heaven). Ebenfalls, two pieces of his painting production this year, heirs of this distinctive esthetic of smooth transparency that allows the union of bodies, are Devenir (Becoming,) and Enredos (Entanglements) with a range of colors of strong symbolic meaning.

Splendid iconography is presented to us as intimate and unique artistic confession. Here are the passions of Ernesto García Peña – his longings and pain captured in that, not in the least complacent, “lyricism” that denotes and connotes in significant representations, to take us to the plane of his inalienable identity. An identity that, also universal, certainly belongs to this other side of the world, to the islands bathed by seas whose reflections adopt the most astonishing shades to become resolutely Caribbean, Kubaner. Those islands where the plentiful love of its inhabitants reigns – the love that has been so well captured by the creative genius of García Peña.

Havanna, Sunday, Juni 21, 2015