Catalogo Paisajes Menguantes

Maikel Sotomayor
WANING LANDSCAPES
Geneva, November 2017

CONCERTATIONS OF THE SUBJECT
Curatorship: David Mateo
Coordination: Belkis Martín
Design: M. Guerrero
The attempt of chronicle, of travel document that Maikel Sotomayor has
been introducing in his landscaping works, is one of the first aspects that
must be taken into account when evaluating them. Because of my professional
and friendship relationship with the artist, I have had access to
complementary data of his career that allow me to recognize in his compositions
some evidences that would be difficult to detect by an outside observer.
But I’m not interested in preserving them as exclusive guarantees
of a critical analysis, more or less successful, but also to offer them to the
public of his works so that they do not remain in the simple technical or
aesthetic appreciation of them, and approach them with a will of discernment,
of revelation around the artistic subject, an aspect that I consider
crucial to understand the background of his proposals.
The confidentiality of these data does not restrict, but on the contrary,
enriches the ability to suggest the works of this young creator. And it
is that his neoexpressionist painting, contained and explosive at the same

time, does not intend to hide a structuring variable characterized, essentially,
by the juxtaposition of experiential planes, planes that can be recreated
directly or combined through the canvas, and that prevail even when
the intention of the picture is panoramic. What at first glance could seem
like an effective or simulation resource in certain fragments of the painting,
is nothing more than the intensification of the pictorial and drawing
artifices to emphasize the impression of the different angles of the natural
spaces and the contingencies experienced in them. It is for good reason
that he tends to prioritize in his compositions several areas of transparency,
of transitions; it reveals, with a greater or lesser degree of intensity,
certain emblematic objects or characters from each represented corner,
and builds with them interesting “visual shortcuts”, as if it were a corporeal
and emotional sketch of the place.
In the substratum of the work of Maikel Sotomayor there is an intention
of trust representative of the environment, an environment that aims
to be rediscovered, perceived from its double dimension of ecstasy and
restlessness, and for which everything seems to have significance: the
general accidents of the land, the houses of the peasants, the inhabitants
of the area, the animals, the parceling of the ground, the suggestive configuration
of a stone or an old trunk ...
Maikel Sotomayor makes complicity with the original and enigmatic
places of the geography of the country, going from one extreme to another
capturing the insular breath.
As if that conception that has been used in his landscapes of an irreducible,
incorporated nature typical of Japanese artistic philosophy is not
enough, Maikel Sotomayor now strives to agree on a methodology -with
evident influences of the poetic Haiku- with which to expose the spiritual
dynamics of the landscape and carry out the design of the visual narrative
that justifies them.
David Mateo
Havana, 2016

LANDSCAPES WANING
The eye of the owner. Acrylic on canvans. 150 x 150 cm. 2017

Endless Island. Acrylic on canvans. 200 x 200 cm. 2017 Lake for Waning. Acrylic on canvans. 130 x 140 cm. 2017

Far from Woods. Acrylic on canvans. 130 x 130 cm. 2017 Mam, I’ve Been Late Because the Way was Broken. Acrylic on canvans. 150 x 150 cm. 2017

Wednsday for Martin. Acrylic on canvans. 150 x 150 cm. 2017 Waning Landscape. Acrylic on canvans. 150 x 150 cm. 2017

Settled on Night. Acrylic on canvans. 150 x 150 cm. 2017 A Plait in Time. Acrylic on canvans. 150 x 150 cm. 2017

MAIKEL SOTOMAYOR
December 23, 1989, Havana, Cuba
Phone: +(53) 5293 7916. eddmaikel@gmail.com
www.maikelsotomayor.com
Member of the Hermanos Saiz Association
STUDIES
2004-2008- National Academy of Fine Arts San Alejandro. Havana Cuba.
2007-2008- Member of Las Nuevas Fieras group, directed by Rocío García. National Academy
of Fine Arts San Alejandro. Havana, Cuba.
PERSONAL EXHIBITIONS
2017- Waning Landscapes. OMPI. Geneva, Switzerland.
2016- With Musashi in Viñales. Oswaldo Guayasamín House. Havana, Cuba.
2016- The happiness of the traveler. Teodoro Ramos Blanco Gallery. Havana, Cuba.
2015- Into the open. Bipersonal. Miramar Trade Center. Havana Building, Havana, Cuba.
2015- The beard of the woodcutter. The tunnel Gallery. Havana, Cuba.
2015- The impatience of the fisherman. Miramar Trade Center. Havana Building, Havana, Cuba.
2014- The fruit also had thorns. Miramar Trade Center. Jerusalem Building. Havana, Cuba.
2011- Casita with c of coconut. House of Culture Gallery. Havana, Cuba.
2011- Inventory 121. Ludwig Foundation of Cuba. Havana, Cuba.
2008- Another Self-portrait. National Academy of Fine Arts San Alejandro. Havana, Cuba.
2008- Experimenting. National Academy of Fine Arts San Alejandro. Havana, Cuba.
COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS
2017- Size of the world. Hispanic-American Cultural Center. Havana, Cuba.
2017- Cartographies of a path. Visual Arts Development Center. Havana, Cuba.
2017- Post-it 4. Expo selling of contemporary Cuban Art. Galeano Gallery. Havana, Cuba.
2017- Hope Island. Five Cuban Artists Espay 32. Palma de Mallorca, Spain.
2017- Dialogues. Evolución Fugaz Gallery. Lima, Peru.
2017- Construction of a story. Evolution Gallery. Lima, Peru.
2016- Arigato. Gorria Workshop Gallery. Havana, Cuba.
2016- Breaking the myth. Evolución Fugaz Gallery. Lima, Peru.
2016- Garage: 3308. Open studio. Havana, Cuba.
2016- AtelierLdep Gallery. Miami, Florida, USA.
2016- Coconut Grove Art Festival. Coral Gables, Florida, USA.
2016- Art Palm Beach. West Palm Beach, Florida, USA.
2016- Miami Art Basel Week. Miami, Florida, USA.
2016- Art & Design Gallery. Miami, Florida, USA.
2015- X Contemporary Art Fair.
2015- Post-it 3. Expo selling of contemporary Cuban Art. Galeano Gallery. Havana, Cuba.
2015- National Landscape Salon. Gallery 34. Varadero Fund. Matanzas, Cuba.
2015- Second Landscape Salon. The Acacia Gallery. Havana, Cuba.
2015- The Forester. Provincial Center of Plastic Arts and Design, Light and T rade. Havana Cuba.
2015- The beard of the woodcutter 1. Open studio. 12 Biennial of Havana. Havana, Cuba.
2015- At the moment. Miramar Trade Center. Havana Building. Havana, Cuba.
2015- The Forester 2. Focsa Building. Metropolitan Radio Gallery. Havana, Cuba.

2014- Art exhibit without title. Miramar Trade Center. Havana Building. Havana, Cuba.
2014- Painting on demand. Le Chansonnier Restaurant. Havana, Cuba.
2014- In the memory with the thirst. House of Culture of Plaza Gallery. Havana, Cuba.
2014- Blood. Félix Varela Cultural Center. Havana, Cuba.
2013- Inner- Concept. Wilfredo Lam Gallery. Havana, Cuba.
2013- Permanent art exhibit. Embassy of Canada in Haiti.
2012- The one with wings ... Jardines de la Tropical. El Castillito, Havana, Cuba.
2012- Festival Love in. Pro natura. La Cabaña. Havana, Cuba.
2012- Attempt number 11. Collateral to the 11th Biennial of Havana. San Alejandro Academy.
Havana, Cuba.
2012- Ripe Fruit. Venue of the ACAA. Cárdenas, Matanzas, Cuba.
2011- COLORFULL. The Trasgu Gallery. Asturian Center, Havana, Cuba.
2011- Art exhibit without title. The Trasgu Gallery. Asturian Center. Havana, Cuba.
2011- 17 International Biennial of Graphic Humor. San Antonio de los Baños, Artemisa, Cuba.
2008- Las Nuevas Fieras. National Academy of Fine Arts San Alejandro. Havana, Cuba.
2007- Action Reaction and Effect. House of Culture of Plaza. Havana Cuba.
CURATORSHIPS
2015- On the lake. Radio Metropolitana Gallery. Havana, Cuba.
2015- The Forester 2. Focsa Building. Radio Metropolitana Gallery. Havana, Cuba.
2015- The Forester. Provincial Center of Fine Arts and Design. Havana, Cuba.
2015- At the moment. Miramar Trade Center. Havana Building. Havana, Cuba.
2014- In the memory with the thirst. House of Culture of Plaza. Havana, Cuba.
2012- Ripe Fruit. Venue of the ACAA, Cárdenas, Matanzas, Cuba.
OTHERS
2013- Charity auction of Cuban art. Embassy of Canada in Cuba.
2012- Charity auction of Cuban art. Embassy of Canada in Cuba.
As a writer he has published poetry in Cuba and Spain
2015- Tiempo Nuevo (New Time). Anthology of young world poetry. Spain.
2015- Website. Alejo Carpentier Foundation. Havana, Cuba.
2017- Special Mention in Poetry. Letras con Espada Publishin House. Madrid, Spain
PRIVATE COLLECTIONS
Edouard Labouret. New York
Frederic Bolduc. Canada
Silvia Merlo Italy.
Permanent collection. Embassy of Canada in Haiti.
Among others.

Maikel Sotomayor
LANDSCAPES WANING
Geneva, November 2017