R A F A E L   P É R E Z   A L O N S O   | | |   biography

[lives & works – Havana; Madrid  :::  b. 1965, Havana, Cuba]

RAFAEL PÉREZ ALONSO, is a multifaceted artist who, with drawing and sculpture as basic tools, uses different supports and techniques with ease. He personally executes all his works and has a wide range of expression. As a self-taught plastic artist, he grew up near the sea, which from a young age gave him a clear awareness of the insularity and isolation of his reality. He was a restless child and has always liked to draw and assemble things. The son of working-class parents, during his childhood and early youth he experienced first-hand the austerity and effervescence typical of the Cuban revolution. In the early 1990s, a very difficult time in the country from a political and economic point of view, he began working in advertising, this being his first formal approach to the medium. His first exhibition, “The Principle of Uncertainty”, in 2000, at the age of 35, gave way to his frequent participation in competitions and to exhibiting regularly on gallery circuits. The theme of insularity, and his concerns about identity and its conflicts, led him to win the Grand Prize of the Salon of the City of Havana in 2002. The contestant piece was a triptych of drawings, with the royal palm as center, entitled "Who was going to tell Karl Von Linné?". The Cuban national tree, represented outside of its usual and official context, became one of the symbols that the artist used and uses frequently in his work. In this way he began to incorporate symbols of his reality to express his concerns of a marked social nature. The royal palm, the flag, the sea, the city, its buildings, its cars, the people with their hopes, their conflicts and their fantasies, all within an island, are present and largely define his work. 

Born and raised on an island like Cuba, with all its peculiarities, my work borders on an obsession with themes such as insularity, identity and freedom. I frequently make both historical and everyday symbols my own to describe and question the environment that surrounds me through work with a marked social cut. I make art with any resource and/or material within my reach while taking advantage of the energy of recoverable objects and mixing them with traditional and contemporary supports and technologies.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS 

2021   “Open Studio” La Lavandería Art Studio

2019    “Geografia Nacional 2” Gibara, Holguin

2018     “Mayoría Absoluta” Galería Gorria, La Habana

2015     “REM” La Lavandería Art Studio

2013     “Skylines” Galería Orígenes. La Habana

2013      “Perfiles” El templete, La Habana

2011       “La Ruta del Dinero” CDAV. La Habana

2010        “Geografía Nacional“ Madrid

2008        “Después de tanto tiempo“ Meliá Cohíba, La Habana

2006        "A que jugábamos cuando éramos niños“. Galería Galiano. La Habana

                “Las Ideas están en el aire“ Instituto cervantes, Londres

                “3  de Agosto “Galería Rubén Martínez Villena, La Habana

 2005       "Recordar” S.G.A.E. Lonja del Comercio, La Habana 

                "A quien se le ocurre?” Galería Luz y Oficios

                "El polvo de esta ciudad es la piel de su gente” Galería Galiano. Collage Habana

                “Hay cosas que no cambian” Hotel Palacio O’farrill. La Habana Vieja

2004         “Endémico”. Galería Pequeño Espacio, Concejo Nacional de las Artes Plásticas. La Habana

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2022   “Fabulaciones de la Piedra a la PC”  Galería Collage Habana

            “Arte con Arte” Memorial José Martí, La Habana

2019     “Un viaje de Ida y Vuelta”, Salamanca, España

2014     “Ecce Cuba” Galería de la Plaza Cervantes. Instituto Navona, roma

2012     “El Arsenal III” Madrid

             “Dry Cleaning” XI Bienal de la Habana, La Lavandería Art Studio, La Habana
2011      “El Arsenal II” Madrid

2010       “El Arsenal I” Madrid