Since the most remote times, man has captured his passage through this world, his daily life, sufferings and passions. The aborigines did it in the most rock form in rocks or with mud modeling deities as a symbol of their beliefs, because faith, although many deny it or are skeptical, is capable of moving mountains. This was the beginning of what we call art today.
With the Renaissance came a way of taking sculpture to the highest and most sublime level. Human figures in marble, bronze and other materials seemed to speak to us of sorrows, joys, wars, deaths and loves like the most vivid of men. At the height of 2020, there are many artists who bet on human and abstract sculpture. And if we land that argument in Cuba, emblematic creators like Jilma Madera, Rita Longa, Florencio Gelabert, Ramon Casas and Roberto Fabelo stand out, along with Eliseo Valdes, Jose Villa Soberon, the Carpenters, among many others (the list would be endless), to which we must add one more name: Rafael San Juan.
Let's start with his best-known work in Cuba, Primavera, a true success at the XII Havana Biennial (2015). Located on the city's wide Malecon, on one side of the Douville Hotel, the piece stands out for its large size and figuration. A woman with Creole features and an austere countenance steals our gaze, thanks to the exquisite conception of her face, as well as the details in the neck and the way in which she degrades the work down to the base. The figure, in addition, presents a very common gesture in man, that of turning his head in search of a better perspective for his eyes and it is also an artistic intention, with the purpose of visualizing the work in all its magnitude, from a better angle.
Similar characteristics are present in the sculptures of the artist in Maxima gallery. Primavera's women in medium format allow to unravel their attributes, appreciable by the degree of realism carved by Rafael San Juan. A spectacle for the outsider's vision. A composition of authenticity for the minds that long to observe the anatomy of one of the most intelligent beings on the planet, from the strength of the metal. To rediscover, under the halo of contemporary Cuban art, the stamp of the neck, the landscapes of the ear, the curves of the eyebrows and the undulations of the mouth is to feel more alive and at the same time more legitimate as a species.
Of course, if we talk about spring, there must be flowers, births and a certain purity, three distinctive characteristics in the creator's sculptures, which grant spirituality to our collection to continue with the intention of placing Cuban art in the place it deserves.
Rafael San Juan's attraction for the human figure is his leitmotiv, his sentence in art, his personal way of seeing us as a breath of life through the constant chime and refine elements of nature (marble, bronze and other metals), which have been witnesses of the most heterogeneous muses. Thus, bodies, hands and other creative forms emerge from his intellect in the long path of a spectacular craft.
When we think of the artist, the closest thing to a symphony comes to mind, a coming and going of harmonious chords. His pieces come from the softness and virtue of originating sculptures that permeate the memory like a magnet to confirm our connection with the divine, not as a superior and distant being, but as part of thought and above all, of our work.
Born in Havana in 1973, Rafael San Juan was chosen Man of the Year in 2019 by the International Honoris Causa Foundation established in Mexico, due to his excellent work in that country and other nations.
Published: June 1, 2020