Havana: A digital art exhibit entitled From My Garden by Cuban artist Gilberto Frometa will open tomorrow Jan. 26 at the Origenes Gallery. In 2008 in Havana, Frometa found a sort of “fan cemetery” of these electric appliances assembled in off-the-wall fashions. They had been piled up as part of a replacement program and this vision was the starting block for his From My Garden series.
Gilberto Frometa (Havana, 1946) is a drawer, painter and engraver who belongs to the first class of the National School of Arts. His linkage with excellent photo reporters who worked for the Cuba International magazine –he served a stint there as graphic designer- encouraged him to delve into photography. Art critic and poet Alex Fleites had this to say about this experience: “Thus, Frometa walks into the universe of photochemistry: he uses emulsions and developers on cloth, wood, paper. Critics at that time hailed his experiments with enthusiasm as they could diffuse all boundaries between photography and painting, and called them ‘a renovator of the old proceedings’.”
Frometa is represented at the National Museum of Fine Arts’ collection of Cuban artists and his works have been successfully exhibited in Spain, USA, Mexico, France, Malaysia, Portugal, Germany, Algeria, Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Netherlands, UK, Japan, Poland, Russia, Syria, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Hungary, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panama, Venezuela and China.
He’s been recognized with the National Culture Distinction, First Prize at the 6th Small Format Biennial (Engraving), TAGA, Caracas; Espacio Latinoamericano Prize in Paris, First Havana Biennial; the “Francisco Javier Baez” National Engraving Prize, First Havana Biennial; Prize at the First National Engraving Exhibit, Small Format, granted by the Ministry of Culture, among other awards.
The Form My Garden exposition will remain open till late February.
