Esteban’s Ark

BY ESTRELLA DIAZ—Special for Granma International—

FROM the end of April until the last days of May, the most recent work by visual artist Esteban Machado Díaz (Güira de Melena, La Habana, 1965) at the Acacia, Gallery in Havana is be shown in a solo exhibition called Arcas de fe (Arks of Faith).

Using a landscape of coconut trees, perhaps as an icon, this painter attempts to reaffirm the ark as a conservative and triumphal element, a talisman of faith, a song to the future.

His work evokes and invokes hope through a singular landscape where light and shadow, and above all, the intensity of color (with a predominance of the range of blues) defines a personal aesthetic whose singularity resides in the supposed simplicity of the message.

Its codes, apparently clear and evident, may become a trap and a secret at the same time.

Esteban, who has a BA in civil construction, an MA in professional education and has been teaching at the university for 11 years, began his career as a visual artist five years ago.

"Since I was very little, I have been interested in the world of fine arts, but as I was going through the different levels of my education, I was leaning towards the sciences and engineering. However, painting has always been a refuge for me. From 1988 I decided to become a professional painter, and began taking classes in this subject."

Were your teaching experience and your knowledge of engineering useful for your work as a painter?

Yes, studying gives you the most important tools to be able to make a concrete elaboration of what you want. I used to be a university professor, teaching technical drawing. Architectural design, for instance, is useful at the time of painting because it enables you to break down and summarize perspectives that are very difficult; also, through this work, you can adopt a vision from different angles, helping you to work with color. The fine arts are freer and more creative because architectural design is governed by physical laws that you have to follow. Here, you have the opportunity to break these laws and create your own. But definitively yes, knowledge is a very important support.

So do you consider yourself a freer professional because you are now an artist?

Totally! In this field, creation has no limits. While you are thinking and generating new things, you can shape them in the form that you wish.

A few months ago, you had a show called Arcas de cubanía (Arks of Cuban Identity) at the Lombillo Palace in Havana.

That was my second solo show. The first one was in 2001, Mi verso es un surtidor (My verse is a fountain), at the San Francisco de Asís Convent, also in Old Havana. The theme of that exhibit was the simple verses of José Martí, the national Cuban hero. I made a recreation where the landscape was a communicative element; in other words, I took the verses and made the compositions, but the landscape was at the center. I am very satisfied with the show Arcas de cubanía; although I believe that an artist is never completely satisfied; there are always new expectations. But, Arcas de cubanía represented a point of encounter from which I began to define an identity of our insular character with its own icons, as islanders.

Is this the reason for the coconuts?

The coconut palm’s fruit represents Cuba and the Caribbean. We live in a sort of paradise surrounded by the sea and a landscape in which mangos, carob and palm trees abound. I began to elaborate a representation where the coconut is an icon similar to a frail island in the middle of the sea. However, this island is filled with many values, ranging from faith in a better future to Cubans’ typical honesty. I would like my work to be charged with what is known as Cuban idiosyncrasy. I try to represent happy or convoluted moments we have gone through. Arcas de cubanía was very popular, and this made me feel very good.

A landscape within a landscape?

I accept it: this is a landscape within another landscape. The background is a typically Cuban landscape, as inserted inside a coconut that, in addition, has fresh water inside and can float. All this, I believe, suggests that our island is in constant struggle with the pounding of the waves and several adversities.

Do you consider yourself a landscape painter?

I consider myself a landscape painter—perhaps—because of my roots. I begin by painting landscapes and establish a search, and I reach it from a study of the t ark-coconut element. In my work, I try to be as respectful as I can of the characteristics of each element that I paint. My composition is rather fantastic, but recreating elements proper to the landscape. At the same time, I consider myself a figurative artist because I describe elements through paintings that I fuse with marine and rural landscapes, even with still life.

Do your arks have some connection with Noah’s?

Yes, there is a spirit of faith in the case of the ark, protective and conservative of values. I make a parallel between the survival of the species referred to by the religious myth. In my arks, I try to preserve our more genuine and better values; those that fight against all hardships either climatic, political or social.

And the palm tree?