By: Myrna W.Curras
Arte al Día Internacional No.76 September 1999

We have partaken of great moments in painting. We have had many pleasant and unforgettable experiences derived from witnessing or participating in some significant change in the work of our artists, or from being able appreciate it at first hand. I have been fortunate enough to witness and enjoy the execution of works to be exhibited soon after, as has been the case with the recent works of a master; the Cuban artist Luis Vega. I have a whole repertoire of anecdotes on these episodes. I have been a witness of the way in which an artist who shows responsibility, consideration and respect with regard to his profession and vocation, on the one hand, and with regard to the public and the collectors, on the other, has worked hard day and night for the lapse of approximately a year, to prepare an exhibition of his works, most of them large format paintings. Luis Vega has had to face a completely blank, large-format canvas and create, produce a world filled with vegetation, mountains, rivers, clouds -bis famous clouds seas and waves that sway bach and forth with the breeze. This has been a challenge to space, to perspective, to light and shadows, to transparencies, to the techniques of and the keys to, painting. It is a challenge to the artist, to Luis Vega, which he has successfully met. He has been an accurate emitter of bis artistic language. His landscapes are interior representations; he has exteriorized them, achieving a pictorial oeuvre with a high-level content and excellent feature  in his most recent works, he has incorporated new elements to bis thematic approach. The following are his answers to our questions during a recent interview:

MC- Luis, since you have been the sole creator of  this artistic production, i would like you to explain to us what inner force enables you to render these landscapes.

LV- By painting nature at the height of its splendor, I intend to pay homage to this expression of life, light and color. I make these different elements of the landscape confront each other in a surrealistic way, and thus produce a new symbolic image resulting in something like a dream of freedom and a vision of hope.

MC- We see in your works a constant element: cloud-s. We believe this deserves a more in-depth treatment in the study of the psychology of your art. Hidden images in the midst of day-dreams?

LV-  I previous shows I devoted my self to painting the vegetation, the mountains, gigantic waves, the rivers, my traveling palm trees and, as always, my clouds: those which, since my childhood, have taught me to see beyond their mere appearance, to waken my imagination, and have led me to live since then -you are right- in a daydream. These clouds whose presence, as you rightly say, is a constant in my painting , have very ofren been the support of my landscapes, that is to say that on them I have painted the Cuban countryside in a symbolical way, as something ¿bat is perhaps remote yet always present, and seen not in a nostalgic way but, on the country, with all the strength and vitality represented by our oppressed nationality in search of airs of freedom.

M.C.- For this recent output, you have worked very hard, you have used new elements, there has been a change in your work. Why?

L.V- My recent works were designed for this new exhibition I have incorporated animal life, an aspect of life that, together with the vegetation and the seas, is part of the marvels of the universe. I have included the strength of the horse, its spirit and elegance, as well as the sense of freedom and frailty that seagulls arouse in me, all elements I think were lacking in my work, to complement a more encompassing spectrum of plastic suggestions; now I feel that my paintings have been infused with a more human touch, even though man does not appear as part of the composition, but rather remains as a simple spectator of the world of ideas that I paint.

Luis Vega’s recent works will be on show throughout the month of November, at Elite Fine Art”, Coral Gables, Florida.