This is an original work on paper, by a very talented artist. This work is mixed media, and measures around 16" x 12". The artist is Jorge Sicre.
The following is from Sean Poole of the Gattorno Foundation:
Jorge Luis Sicre-Gattorno was born in Havana, Cuba on April 15, 1958. He is the grandson of the Cuban sculptor Juan Jose Sicre, and the cousin of Cubas premier Vanguardia painter Antonio Gattorno. His father, Jorge Sicre, was a cellist with the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra and currently teaches at Julliard. His mother is a psychiatrist, Dr. Candida Gattorno-Sicre. Another cousin was the late Jose Gomez-Sicre, the Cuban art critic and longtime director of the Museum of the Organization of American States.
Sixty one year old Jorge Luis is a graduate of the University of California in Santa Barbara. He displays a bold and uniquely original style as a Neo- Symbolist. Working in oil, watercolor and collage he has produced a large body of work which has been exhibited in a wide variety of locations throughout the U.S., including the Nexus Gallery and the Afro-American Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; The Walt Whitman Center for the Arts in Camden, New Jersey; The Martello Museum in Key West, Florida; Galeria Vanidades in Coconut Grove, Florida; The Bedford Stuyvesant Center for the Arts and Culture in Brooklyn New York; as well as the Cayman Gallery (now the Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art), also in New York.
His work is included in museum collections at the Housatonic Museum of Art in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the Museum of Modern Latin American Art in Washington, DC, and the Bass Museum in Miami Beach, Florida.
In January 2000 he participated in the exhibit, "Cuban Art: Past&Present", at the Catalina Gallery in Coral Gables, Florida. In the fall and winter of 2,000, he was featured at the Roberto Savedra Gallery in Los Angeles, California.
J.L. Sicre taps into a myriad of sources as diverse Afro-Cuban shamanism, classical Egyptian, Greek and Roman mythology and the current fascination of popular culture with things cosmic and extraterrestrial. His use of figurative allegory works much like the mythology that serves as its inspiration, metaphorically illustrating otherwise abstract concepts.
Although raised in the United States, Sicre-Gattorno remains innately Cuban at heart and in his creative esthetic. He recently paid homage to the influence of his artistic heritage, to his grandfather Juan Jose Sicre, and to his cousin Antonio Gattorno, in a group of paintings he calls, "La Leyenda Suite", that deals with different myths and legends of Cuba. A watercolor from this suite, titled, "La Cubita" was selected by the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department for use on the 1999 Los Angeles Cuban Cultural Festival poster.
J.L. Sicre-Gattorno currently divides his time between Long Beach, California and Miami Beach, Florida, where he is producing his latest group of paintings.
Cuba is a goldmine of talent. From the Russian influences, to the classical European artists, that many of the Cuban Masters studied with.
Despite a series of repressive governments the art scene has historically thrived in Cuba, where culture occupies a prominent place. Art played a key role in the Cuban revolution and there are currently about 14 art schools, a University of Fine Arts, as well as 13,000 ‘registered artists’ on the island, as Rene Duquesne of the National Council of Visual Arts points out.
The African presence in Cuba is undeniable, incredibly strong and visible but because of the practice of whitening in the US, it is possible to shed, deny, or simply omit one's blackness in order to melt into the dominant, acceptable identity group in Miami. Here it is both possible and common to refer to being Cuban, refer to one's self as “white” while showing pictures of generations of family that include a Black abuelo or abuelita. So when we talk of Afro-Cuban art, we have several distinctions – art that pays homage to African heritage and culture, art by Black Cubans, art that makes reference to Afro-Cuban culture, and none of these are mutually exclusive. As a “movement,” Afro-Cuban Art involves bringing what is Black about Cuba to the forefront and an important linking with Black diaspora arts as a much larger field or landscape. It is one in which Black/ Afro-Cuban lives matter.