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The images that accompany this text are far from what they could be appreciated by you in front of the painting. Because they are not photos, but rather oil paintings; but mainly because they are drawn based on the artist’s ametropia. (…)

Karlos Pérez bases his work on the study of figuration based on a surrealist perspective, which in turn is his own perspective of the world. Since his early childhood he has suffered from a complicated ametropia, that is to say, an abnormal refractive condition of the eye in which images fail to focus upon the retina. During his stage as a student at the Higher Institute of Art (ISA) he already called the series Ametropia, which I consider marks the start of his own and distinctive path.

At the beginning he would use the images of classmates or representations that were interesting in their composition. Afterwards he was more inquisitive and found a world full of stories which he brought back to life. Portraits of ancestors forgotten by their own descendants (…) That’s how he amassed a collection of family photos (…) which allowed him to make personal exhibitions in Havana’s Galería Servando (…) and (…) Galería La Acacia, during the 2015 Havana Biennial. In both series he identifies the works with the date in which these persons decided to perpetuate the moment.

In a conversation with Karlos I asked him why he collected others’ memories and he answered that “using photos of other persons, their graphic memories, goes beyond my personal vision, it allows me to connect with more universal themes.” His investigations on this sphere led him to discover in New York some non-developed negatives of U.S. photographer and painter Thomas Eakins which directly encouraged him to direct his glance at the study of the form and composition of the image in movement. The series Blind Memories was born from that.

(…) In 2016 his work got the best commercial publicity that the audiovisual market can give when it appeared in the film Misconduct, directed by Shintaro Shimosawa, starring Anthony Hopkins and Al Pacino. At that time his paintings were on display in New Orleans’ Octavia Gallery.

(…) For this exhibit he proposed to himself to not use his style’s monochromatic line, to give colors to his paintings, using the same shades and in the same way as the analogic photos were colored in laboratories. Right now he continues working with oil paintings and experimenting its effects in different supports like amber, stainless steel, copper, gold and silver. (…)

By Sue Harrison / Banner Correspondent

In America, parents frequently steer their children away from a career in the arts, but in Cuba it is quite another story. Art — music, painting or dancing — is considered a positive expression of the culture, and in this communist Caribbean country, that’s a good thing.

Cuban artist Luis Rodriguez Noa has been preparing to be an artist since he was 12 years old. That’s when his official art training began. He left his family and home in Baracoa to study art in Guantanamo and then Havana, where he still lives and works.

And now, at 6 p.m. on Friday, July 14, Noa will have an opening of a show of his recent work at Galeria Cubana at 357 Commercial St. in Provincetown. He will also give a gallery talk there at 1 p.m. on Sunday, July 16. Galeria Cubana has been representing Cuban artists in both Provincetown and Boston for a decade.

Meeting up with Noa in Havana, it is possible to observe how he pays attention and gathers information about everything around him, and how eventually it all shows up on his canvases. He regards his country with both love and skepticism. And like Cuban artists before him, he uses symbolism and iconography to express that.

"There is still a lot of symbolism to code some messages, though there are a lot of direct messages, too,” Noa says. “I would say that art, like nature, has found its own way. There is still a long way to the ideal, but there is now the feeling that these are times when censorship prefers not to be in the difficult job of censoring [all the time]."

In his artwork — paintings, drawings, sculpture — Noa depicts the chaos of life in Cuba.

"I am concerned about the day to day routine and how it takes so much time to do anything,” he says, noting that resources are scarce, even the basics. “Like if you want to fix something. You have to look for a nail and then a tool. It all takes time. Things don’t work the way they are supposed to, but they do work in a surrealistic way."

He shrugs and smiles. Life is regulated in Cuba but also filled with chance and a little magic. People have come to expect that and don’t understand why it’s even a big deal.

Artist’s talk
What: Luis Rodriguez Noa discusses his art
Where: Galeria Cubana, 357 Commercial St., Provincetown
When: 1 pm Sunday
Admission: Free

An example of this could be observed earlier that day, when a British tourist at a Havana hotel complained to a clerk at the front desk about his drain. The clerk asked the tourist if it was clogged. With much irritation, the man replied that it drains, but very slowly. The clerk, well trained in hospitality, put on a look of concern and promised to check it out. But in his face it was also possible to discern his amazement that someone would complain about something that actually worked.

Noa has written that his art explores "the unexpected movement, humor, passion and lyricism that can be found in the streets: from the bizarre to the beautiful, from the ordinary to the magical. In short, I want to portray a world made of dreams that is vibrant, full of life, and intellectual."

Cubans have more opportunities these days. They can start small businesses selling souvenirs, open rooftop restaurants or just dress up like dancers from the legendary Tropicana and pose with tourists for a little cash. But many are still crammed into too-small apartments where a neighbor might as well be in the same room. And everything is difficult to accomplish.

One of Noa’s installation works from 2004, “Relativity Theory,” expresses just that.

"It depicts a tall table, out of proportion with the normal size chair,” he says. “The table is illuminated on top, from inside, and on top of it there are 12 hourglasses, but I made it with oil bottles — real oil — instead of sand.” He explains that oil is a basic need not covered by the rations book everyone gets. Oil is expensive and getting enough each month is an achievement.

“The table is tall, symbolizing that it is not at the easy reach of the people,” he says. “And the hourglass refers to the time people spend here trying to solve basic problems. The table’s upper part also is like a suitcase, referring to travel and dreams to pursue.”

Noa has found that things don’t always work in America either. On a visit in 2014 he wanted to buy art supplies not available in Cuba. Cubans don’t have credit cards, so he brought $2,000 in cash, a lot of money for a Cuban. In Miami he went to Wells Fargo and asked if he could open a bank account and get a debit card. He showed them his passport, said that he was a Cuban citizen and that he was going home after his visit. They assured him that it wouldn’t be a problem. But as soon as he tried to use the debit card, he was told that his account was frozen because he was a Cuban. He has been trying to get his money back ever since, to no avail. It’s still held up at Wells Fargo.

He turned what happened to him into a painting, in which the “theft” of his money has become a western fable using the iconic Wells Fargo stage coach.

“You have to learn how to work with life like that, or you have to make another revolution,” Noa says. “You learn how to make art with that. Life here is like looking at a very big animal. You don’t know how it works, but it does. Like trying to change things you cannot change, you learn to work with that. Or the seasons — you don’t try to change the seasons, you just work with them.”

This marks Michelle's second appearance on WGBH Greater Boston. In May 2012 Michelle was interviewed along with gallery artist Orestes Gaulhiac.

Author of several books, Mr. Kornbluh serves as Director of the National Security Archive's Cuba Documentation Project and the Chile Documentation Project.

Through extensive research, Kornbluh (and William Leogrande) have uncovered hundreds of formerly secret U.S. documents and conducted interviews with dozens of negotiators, intermediaries, and policy makers, including Fidel Castro and Jimmy Carter.

The book describes how serious negotiations have been conducted by every presidential administration since Eisenhower's through secret, back-channel diplomacy. Including ten critical lessons for U.S. negotiators, the book offers a key perspective on the normalization process underway and illuminates a fascinating passage in U.S.-Cuban relations as it happens.

"Challenging the prevailing narrative of U.S.-Cuba relations, this book investigates the history of the secret, and often surprising, dialogue between Washington and Havana. The authors, who spent more than a decade examining classified files, provide a comprehensive account of negotiations beginning in 1959. . . . suggesting that the past holds lessons for future negotiators." -- The New Yorker

She breaks many right down the center with the edge of a door or building, with a scene on one side and its reflection on the other, suggesting two worlds: one concrete, the other an illusion.

In “All Terrain,” she sets us at pavement level, looking up at a man on a bike. A woman’s feet pass on one side. Yet we’re high on the canvas. A puddle with the man’s reflection fills most of the painting. The white sky above turns murky below. With works like these, Fontes weighs reality against the light and shadows it casts onto the world around it, and in our minds."

In 2011, after visiting Galeria Cubana in Boston on two occasions, Donnelly asked Wojcik if he could document the story of her artists. After months of discussion, she invited him to travel to Cuba in 2012 on his first journey to the island. There the Gallery Owner introduced him to the artists she had built relationships with throughout the five years of exhibiting their works in her two galleries. Donnelly was immediately enchanted with their spirit and talents. Donnelly spent a good eighteen months making the documentary film with producers in Brazil and Cuba.

Alumbrones was the Opening Film at the Boston International Latino Film Festival. Wojcik and Donnelly presented the film to a large auditorium at Harvard University and fielded queries from the audience afterward in a question and answer session.

Click link below to watch the film.

Through in-depth interviews in the artists’ homes and studios, the film reveals the philosophies and ideas that inspires the work and covers a diverse range of subjects and issues from supply shortages to family life, love, sex, and music. Several persistent themes come into light: ingenuity, perseverance, passion, and patriotism. We are shown how each artist has developed his/her own technique to serve as a vehicle of communication for his/her own perspective on these common themes that unite them not only as artists, but also as Cubans. We are left with an understanding of the work, the people, and an unequaled love for the country.

For many of the artists interviewed, the onset of the traumatic “special period,” triggered by the collapse of the Soviet Union and subsequent loss of trade and aid, was not only a time of pecuniary poverty, but also a time of creative wealth. At the crux of this “special period,” due to the poor conditions of decaying power plants, apagones, or power blackouts, had become a frequent and on-going problem for Havana. Less frequent were alumbrones, or periods of light. In a country full of uncertainty and possibility, Alumbrones offers an honest, unassuming depiction of a country united by those who love it deeply and would choose no other place to call home.

Alumbrones was created in collaboration between Galería Cubana owner, Michelle Wojcik, and South African filmmaker, Bruce Donnelly, who asked Wojcik if he could document the story of her artists. She invited him to travel to Cuba and introduced him to “the artists near and dear to me.” Galería Cubana is one of approximately 30 institutions that hold U.S. Treasury Department licenses to legally import artwork from Cuba. Wojcik visits Cuba regularly and has forged close relationships with the artists she represents.

Alumbrones will premiere October 2013 at the Raindance Film Festival in London, England.

by Steve Desroches

On a moonlit night as the animals lazily roam the fields, the king and his jester steal a kiss in the shadows. The crown and the jester’s cap hovering over the stolen kiss in the dark lend themselves as clues that this is a forbidden kiss for many reasons. But the playful geometric shapes, the depth of field from the applied textures to the painting, and the use of light on the witnessing mules give enough playfulness that this is also a moment of joy. The image is from a work titled Oculta Relacion De Amor, Entre Un Rey Y Su Bufon (A Secret Love Between the King and the Jester) by world-renowned Cuban artist Orestes Gaulhiac, who adeptly mixes whimsy with social satire, great skill with fairytale-like guidance.

“Part of the dialogue is that love is mutual between two people,” says Gaulhiac through translator Fermín Rojas. “And that the king may spend more time with the jester than the queen.”

Gaulhiac’s work has been shown in Europe and North America, as well as in his native Cuba. His show at Galeria Cubana marks his first Provincetown exhibition, and through a last-minute visa approval by the United States government, Gaulhiac was able to attend his July 5 opening at the Commercial Street gallery. Galeria Cubana provides a connection to an artistic world that, due to complicated politics between Cuba and the United States, often is not considered outside of cities with large Cuban populations, like Miami. But indeed Cuba has a world-class art scene, and for the past 20 years Gaulhiac has been a major force in Cuba’s art world, and is one of the country’s leading contemporary artists.

Born in the city of Santiago de Cuba in 1960, Gaulhiac had his first exhibition in Havana in 1978. His road to being a professional, independent artist took a few twists and turns. He was asked to leave art school in his hometown, not because he wasn’t very talented, but rather because he skipped required science, history, and other general education classes. Determined, he moved over 500 miles away to Havana where he camped outside of the Escuela Nacional de Diseno (National School of Design) to speak with the school’s director. The gentleman took a liking to Gaulhiac and empathized with his story. If Gaulhiac could pass the rigorous aptitude test, which required showing proficiency in painting, drawing, sculpture, and more, then he could enroll in the prestigious school. He succeeded and was graduated from the school in 1980. He spent the next 11 years as a set designer for Cuban television, primarily for children’s programs, an experience that still influences his work today.

“It has the features of images that are played with like dolls and marionette puppets,” says Gaulhiac. “It adds a bit of magic.”

While there is a touch of social commentary on class divisions in his work, by placing royalty intimately with their subjects, his work captures everyday moments; snapshots of a moment in time where two people share a kiss, or just a glance at each other. It’s an interpretation of the social mythology created by cultural and class structures humans keep in place. The paintings are larger than life and give magic to the mundane.

In technique, Gaulhiac’s painting are intricate diagrams of brush strokes, layers of paint, scrapes, and gouges that create texture and shading as well as highlighting color choice that is captivating because of what it features and hides.

“I like playing with fields of light,” says Gaulhiac. “Sometimes I’m interested in elevating a field of light not just for the light, but to lift the color to its highest point. Taking broad points of light orchestrates a magnetic point.”

While Gaulhiac’s work is not political, being a Cuban artist visiting the United States comes with the inevitable questions about the political state between the two countries, as well as the situation for artists in Cuba. Artists in Cuba have had the freedom to travel longer than most citizens in the Caribbean country have, says gallery director Michelle Wojcik, whose gallery is one of only 30 institutions that holds a U.S. Treasury Department license to legally import artwork from Cuba. Gaulhiac is a member of the Union Nacional de Escritores y Artistas de Cuba (UNEAC), an artistic union that, among other things, assists Cuban artists to travel around the world with their work. He first left Cuba in 1991, visiting and working in the Dominican Republic for eight months, an experience that motivated him to become an artist full time.

“They didn’t want me to leave. They asked me to stay,” says Gaulhiac of his employers at the television studio. “But I said no. I was done.”

Things are changing in Cuba. Free enterprise is expanding, allowing artists to open their own private galleries. And in January of this year Cuba lifted travel bans on its citizens, allowing them to go wherever they want without the government’s permission. However, as with any international travel, getting the required visa for the destination can be a challenge, as was the case with Gaulhiac’s cliff-hanging wait for his own paperwork to be approved by the U.S. to come to Provincetown. As Cuba and the United States have no official diplomatic relations and the U.S. has kept a lonely embargo on the country since 1960, politics can overshadow Cuban art, even if the work has no political overtones (which, when it does, there is no censorship, says Gaulhiac.) However, the mystique of the chilly relations and the distance placed between the two countries by diplomatic tensions give a certain cache to Cuban art as far as Americans are concerned, says Gaulhiac.

“Cuba is a very curious topic for a lot of people,” says Gaulhiac.” Part of the fascination with Cuban art is that it is taboo, a mystery.”

Orestes Gaulhiac’s work is being shown with fellow Cuban artist Edel Bordon in the Moments of the Soul exhibition at Galeria Cubana, 357 Commercial St., Provincetown, through Thursday, July 25. For more information call 508.487.2822 or visit www.lagaleriacubana.com.

Top Photo on left: Michelle Wojcik, Eduardo Guerra, Susan Baker in the studio of Eduardo Guerra, Havana, Cuba

Cuban printmaker Isolína Límonta specializes in collagraphs - prints made with plates that have collaged materials on them. Her show at Galeria Cubana is lush and dreamy in hue and texture, and even her drawings are built upon layers of imagery and pattern. The layering suggests subtexts of longing and levels of consciousness and identity in the figures she portrays. The collagraph “Alfonsina y el mar (Alfonsina and the sea)’’ is soaked with hot hues. A neon-orange figure in a flaring, elaborate up-do has a powder-blue face streaked and patterned with green and orange tendrils. She faces another figure, this one upside-down in a purple-green mosaic, with a floral pattern rising up her torso. More plant life fills the ground between them. A heart floats between the two women. Some of the works can veer too deeply into yearning - this is a theme that crops up often in Cuban art, and may reflect the sometimes difficult life of an artist in an isolated island nation. But when the color kicks in, the works rivet the eye.

The subject matter of Cuban artist Orestes Gaulhiac’s playful paintings, on view at Galería Cubana, may seem at odds with his obsessive technique. Gaulhiac creates shading by scratching countless hash marks into his paint. He adds filigreed borders to many of his figures, delicate rows of triangles that he sometimes layers to resemble zippers. The results are like stylized folk tales. In “Amor, paz y buen tabaco (Love, peace and good cigars),’’ he uses a bright rainbow palette and poppy pattern to portray a couple snuggling on a hill. Feathery ferns dance in the foreground. A dove rests on the woman’s back. The man puffs on a cigar. Not every piece is as sweet. Gaulhiac often combines elements of Cubism and Surrealism that add a darker edge. “Bailarina (Ballerina)’’ features, in earth tones, a pirouetting dancer with two heads. A sickle moon with an eye smiles down at her, and a figure — part man, part dog, part bird — watches from the side. The artist’s hash marks suggest that the dancer’s spins have set ripples off around her. That texture, as in all these works, emphasizes the otherworldliness of Gaulhiac’s visions.

“It is so important for my career, to come to this country and show my work,’’ he said, surrounded by his paintings at a South End gallery. “I cannot really express how important it is.’’

The artist’s first trip to Boston, and current exhibition at Galeria Cubana on Harrison Avenue, comes at a time of thawing cultural relations between the two countries. A loosening of federal rules by President Obama has opened the door to more visits by artists; changes announced in January are also expected to revitalize study abroad programs and other educational trips to Cuba, which thrived under the Clinton administration but were curtailed in 2004, when President George W. Bush tightened regulations.

Officials at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design are making plans to reinstate separate Cuba trips for students and donors, both of which were popular from 2000 to 2004, said Janna Longacre, a professor. Plans to renew Cuban study are also in the works at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. Encouraged by the same rule changes, Galeria Cubana owner Michelle Wojcik said she is considering leading trips to Cuba for Boston art collectors.

Wojcik is one of a handful of American dealers with a federal license to import art from Cuba. She runs two galleries specializing in contemporary Cuban art, a four-year-old seasonal space in Provincetown and the two-year-old South End location. Her invitation to Noa marks the third time she has sponsored visits by Cuban artists, allowing them to secure visas to travel to the United States.

“People want to see who’s behind the work, where the inspiration comes from,’’ said Wojcik. “People are so curious about Cuban art.’’

It has been 49 years since President John F. Kennedy imposed a permanent embargo on trade with Cuba, after Fidel Castro seized power and moved to a communist government. The ban on travel, trade, and diplomatic dealings froze Cuba in time, keeping out modern goods and technologies, while also nurturing for many Americans a lasting fascination with the island nation.

Partly as a result of its isolation, and partly in spite of it, the arts have thrived in Cuba, Noa said. “Arts and culture are highly appreciated by a majority of people, whether it’s literature, paintings, dance, or music,’’ he said. “If you go to an art opening in Cuba, it will be packed . . . People fill the lack of material things with spiritual things.’’

Since 1991, when the Center for Cuban Studies, a nonprofit group in New York City, successfully sued the US Treasury Department, art and other “informational materials’’ including films and books have been exempt from embargo spending limits.

The ruling, combined with President Clinton’s easing of travel restrictions, sparked interest in Cuban art and spurred more trips by collectors, until 2004, when the trend reversed under Bush.

For years, Noa said, he turned down invitations to the US without trying for a visa, “because it didn’t seem possible, and I didn’t want the ‘no’ in my passport.’’ The atmosphere has changed since Obama took office, he said, and more artists have won permission to visit.

“There was a different feeling, and I had at least the hope that there would be a ‘yes,’ ’’ he said.

Obama, who lifted travel restrictions for those with family members in Cuba before increasing access for religious, academic and cultural groups, has been criticized by Cuban-American members of Congress who support the embargo and say the changes benefit the Cuban government.

Other Boston institutions are also expanding relationships with Cuba. Berklee College of Music professor Neil Leonard worked with Cuban musicians for years before bringing students there for the first time in December, a spokesman said. The Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra recently received a government license for a weeklong concert tour in Cuba this spring; the students will collaborate with the National Chorus of Cuba to perform Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

At Galeria Cubana, Noa’s work will be shown until mid-April. The artist has a 30-day visa, and plans to visit Provincetown and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City — the subject of his playfully titled painting “My Long and Winding Road to MoMA.’’

Noa, who speaks near-perfect English, describes his art as ironic but rarely political. “Politics is one part of the whole, and I prefer the whole,’’ he says. His most whimsical works depict cows floating on bananas; more abstract pieces feature word fragments and dark, hieroglyphic-like marks against cloudy, gray-washed backgrounds.

In the watery “Ocean Boundary,’’ Cuba’s geography is the subject. “Even without politics,’’ he says, “it’s isolated.’’

The biggest problem for artists in Cuba is the lack of materials, said Noa. When he travels abroad, he packs an empty suitcase and takes it home stuffed with canvases and brushes. Because the embargo restricts shipping, he had to hand-carry all 43 of the pieces for his Boston show with him.

David Davison, a senior faculty member at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and an organizer of past trips to Cuba, said the difficult conditions fuel “discipline and ingenuity’’ among Cuban artists.

“It gets rid of social status, and creates a kind of humanity, an earnestness and naturalness,’’ he said. “In many cases, we’re the impoverished ones, not them.’’

Jenna Russell can be reached at jrussell@globe.com.

Galeria Cubana also hosted the Opening Night Reception of the conference.

"I'm Marco Werman and this is The World. The Obama administration has eased restrictions on visas issued to Cuban artist. The more liberalize policy covers those who refuse to defect or renounce their loyalty to the Cuban revolution. That was the litmus test the Bush administration applied. The new opening has encouraged more Cuban artist to come to the US. The World's Lorne Matalon tells us about two of them..." [Listen to full story by clicking on "More Information"]