JOSIGNACIO (Cuba, 1963). "Martí as seen by Josignacio",... Lot 67

JOSIGNACIO (Cuba, 1963). "Martí as seen by Josignacio", 2017. Mixed media (epoxy resin and oil) on canvas. Attached exhibition book dedicated to José Martí. Dedicated to the journalist Nora Leopoldina. Provenance: Personal gift from the artist to the journalist Nora Leopoldina Rodríguez. Size: 61 x 31 cm; 68 x 37,5 cm (frame). A fluid brushstroke loaded with pigment forms the portrait of the poet and politician José Martí (Havana, 1853 - Dos Ríos, 1895). The artist uses three tones: red, yellow and black, which stand out for the roundness and visual expressiveness they generate. It is in the confluence of these tones, in an open, lyrical and apparently random manner, that the volume is generated which gives way to the poet's face, which is enveloped in an expressive and vibrant atmosphere. The work is part of a series that the painter dedicated to the figure of the poet, whom he defined as follows: "Martí has always been a source of great inspiration for me throughout my career. His image is iconic and his work is incomparable. Since the eighties of the last century, I have worked inspired by his work and portraits. I appreciate in him an intellectual person, a cultured, poetic man, who at the same time had that other warrior side that he showed in life, until the moment of his death, a man of courage who went out to face the enemy. I appreciate in him that inordinate courage, beyond his high sensitivity, for letters, for the arts, creator of precious poems. This duality of his life strikes me, catches my attention. The piece is painted using the "Plastic Paint Medium" technique, created by the artist in 1984. In it he uses epoxy resin as if it were oil paint, that is to say as a binder that he mixes with the pigment, thus achieving a shiny and polished finish. José Ignacio Sánchez Rius, better known as Josignacio, is a contemporary Cuban artist associated with neo-figurative and abstract painting, being a member of "La Generación de los 80", which includes José Bedia Valdés, Humberto Castro, Rubén Torres Llorca and Tomás Sánchez, among others. He began his artistic training in 1983, being accepted at the Instituto Superior de Arte. However, he was expelled so he continued his education in a self-taught way and by working as an artist's assistant. Receiving numerous awards since his first artwork was exhibited as a teenager in 1979, Josignacio's work was formally exhibited between 1987 and 1989 in eighteen galleries in Havana, Cuba. It was in 1989 that he moved from Cuba to the United States. However, as he noted, "in 2015 I returned to Cuba after 25 years, along with other artists. But they didn't give me the National Register of Creators card". In 1996, Josignacio received the Best in Show award at Florida's oldest and most prestigious juried art exhibition, Hortt 38. He then began his high-profile US exhibitions in Palm Beach, Florida. Through 2017, twenty-eight exhibitions followed in the US and Cuba, including themes that pay homage to Cuba's national hero, José Martí; China, its popular culture, folklore and the Chinese zodiac; the National Ballet of Cuba; and the LGBTQ movement. On 10 March 2016, his work The Music is Timeless (1989), part of his guitar series, made Josignacio the first living Latin and Cuban artist in the world to sell a single work of art for over $3 million.