For City Gallery’s April show, CUBA ADRIFT, member artist
Roberta Friedman has invited quilter Sue Millen and photographer Hank Paper to join
her in presenting this visual story of Cuba, its past and present, its ruin and
resiliency. Don’t miss
this inspiring exhibit, on view at the Gallery from April 5 - April 29, with an Opening Reception on Saturday, April 7 from
3-6pm, and a concluding Artists’ Talk on Sunday, April 29 at 2pm.
Each artist has traveled to Cuba at different times
in recent years, and each came away with images, colors, and motifs reflecting its vibrancy, contrasts and complexities caught in a
world adrift with political and social contradictions. “The story of CUBA ADRIFT is about the
visible layers of neglect and decay so evident in Havana, and other smaller cities
and throughout the countryside,” explains Friedman. “But it is also the story of
the vibrant resiliency of the Cuban people and their customs that emerge despite
and in defiance of politics and poverty.”
Roberta Friedman is a painter and collage artist, most recently
focusing on the layered art of encaustic waxes, oil pigments and photo transfers. This art form is well suited to depict the
layers of crumbling majestic architecture in Havana, and brightly painted and re-painted
buildings and homes in cities like Trinidad, Sancti Spiritus, Ceinfuegos, and Camaguey.
Her paintings, too, reveal layers of paint sanded and scraped to reveal what lies
beneath. Discovering what lies beneath is the ache and the joy of Cuba.
“Despite recent expectations, Cuba—its crumbling
cities ever beautiful, its people, ever resourceful—is stuck in time,” says photographer
Hank Paper. Shooting around the world, photographer Paper tries to capture images that
alter our awareness, puncture pretension and mines irony from surface appearances. “As on any island,
it’s instinctive to look out— at ships, sails, the horizon—looking out and ahead.
But on the Malecon, Havana’s five-mile haunting, romantic promenade, you invariably
find people looking in from the water,
because the once bustling harbor and horizon is empty. It’s as if there is nothing
to wait for, nothing to expect. My camera follows this sad but ever beautiful current
of this: Cuba adrift.”
Juxtaposed to the sense of loss and limbo are the vibrant,
innovative, determined people of Cuba. “They are a culture that has used their limitations
to arrive at new ideas and solutions,” explains quilter Sue Millen. “The artists
who continued painting with limited paint supplies and the musicians who had difficulty
securing guitar strings were inspirational.” Her quilted pieces reflect that “make
do” attitude, their frayed edges and patches speak to the Cuban people who have
“learned to improvise and create within the boundaries of politics, economic hardships
and lack of resources.”
The CUBA ADRIFT show and events are free and open to the public. Refreshments
will be served. City Gallery is located at 994 State Street, New Haven, CT 06511.
Gallery hours are Thursday - Sunday, 12 noon - 4pm. For further information please
contact City Gallery, info@city-gallery.org, www.city-gallery.org.
