biography
Born in Camaguey, Cuba in 1972
Graduated from Escuela Profesional de Arte
Huerta practices what the Cubans call "lo real maravilloso" (the marvelous real), a counterpart to the magical realism in Latin-American literature. He counterbalances the realistic and the fantastic, placing recognizable figures, landscapes and buildings in impossible settings. He plays with imbalances of scale and "irrational space," juxtaposing sailing teacups with sailing ships.
Beautifully rendered in acrylics on canvas, his paintings are meant to look like oils, says Lisa Fischman, University Of Arizona Museum of Art curator. Even to the point that he's faked the sheen of oil glaze on top. He paints in a limited Old World palette, in browns, golds, yellows and ambers, with jolts of pale blue or red here and there. Some passages are thinly stained with color, while others have deft layerings of thick paint. Occasionally, Huerta allows paint to drip vertically all across the canvas, like rain, or tears.
The landscape of Cuba, often a backdrop to the fantastic goings-on, emerges in soft, blurry rows of palm trees and glints of light on rooftops. The sea greens of the Straits of Florida shimmer, and sunset skies turn chalky yellow.
Huerta has had some success in Cuba, but this is the first time his extravagant visions have won a museum show in the United States.
Graduated from Escuela Profesional de Arte
Huerta practices what the Cubans call "lo real maravilloso" (the marvelous real), a counterpart to the magical realism in Latin-American literature. He counterbalances the realistic and the fantastic, placing recognizable figures, landscapes and buildings in impossible settings. He plays with imbalances of scale and "irrational space," juxtaposing sailing teacups with sailing ships.
Beautifully rendered in acrylics on canvas, his paintings are meant to look like oils, says Lisa Fischman, University Of Arizona Museum of Art curator. Even to the point that he's faked the sheen of oil glaze on top. He paints in a limited Old World palette, in browns, golds, yellows and ambers, with jolts of pale blue or red here and there. Some passages are thinly stained with color, while others have deft layerings of thick paint. Occasionally, Huerta allows paint to drip vertically all across the canvas, like rain, or tears.
The landscape of Cuba, often a backdrop to the fantastic goings-on, emerges in soft, blurry rows of palm trees and glints of light on rooftops. The sea greens of the Straits of Florida shimmer, and sunset skies turn chalky yellow.
Huerta has had some success in Cuba, but this is the first time his extravagant visions have won a museum show in the United States.
