A Cuban abstract at the Ramistrasse

At Ramistrasse Street Number 31, in the very center of Zurich, visual arts lovers can admire how one of the aesthetical currents that last century first Avant garde set in vogue, valid at present, has original manifestations in Cuba thus proving the Island’s creator capacity to project at a universal scale with a very defined sense of identity.

The gallery Artemorfosis, specialized in the promotion of Cuban visual arts has just inaugurated an arts show of painter Gilberto Frómeta (Havana, 1946) entitled Luz tropical, showing how this artist appropriates of and develops Abstractionism. 

The paintings Frómeta brought to Switzerland, all of them were almost painted in recent dates, state visual challenges that in great part have to do with the informalism’ concerns but at the same time go beyond those approaches.

Each one of his paintings shows a compositional balance rationally conceived, but it is also possible to access to the emotional explosions of an artist who shares his poetic intensity with the observer.

Shreds of reality split in Lluvia, piece from 2005, have been concentrated in passages in which the determined use of color defines the lyric tessiture of the work (Verdes esporas de la vida, 2010 and Grito en amarillo, 2011) or in chromatic speculations revealing changing moods (Eternidad, del 2010).

There are any doubts about the potential of light as reflection of the artist’s islander condition and at the same time as encode instrument of a communicative will. Frómeta’s art isn’t a secretive number but an invitation for open feelings. It is maybe is influenced by other of the professions he alternated with painting: graphic design. Critic Rafael Acosta de Arriba is right in his words for the catalogue when he notices in the works presented in Switzerland some kind of recovery of geometry, not to define the style, but as support of the images and central element in the compositions. This is even sharper in recently created works, like Relacióntardía, 2014, and Intimidad, from 2015.

Frómeta’s presence in Zurich can serve as launching platform for European public, experts and collectors interest about Cuban Abstractionism, a zone of creation worthy to repalce beyond our frontiers.

Source: Granma