As a child, I had an absolute fascination with the arts: music, dance, painting. My initiation into the world of fine art was therefore very organic. In some way, I was already painting as a way to understand the world around me, but I began taking formal classes at the age of 12, when I felt a calling to translate what I saw and felt into something visual. My training at the Institute of Fine Arts in Havana during the 1990s was truly formative. It was a time of material scarcity, but also of explosive creativity. I discovered that art was my refuge, the place where I could express what I could not say otherwise.

I would describe my work as a state of meditation: an exploration of silence, an intimate and psychological act. My inspiration comes from everyday experience and from the ways we negotiate with our environment. I am interested in the idea of identity and the masks we wear before the world. That is why I use my own image through self-portraiture. However, my work is not autobiographical. I use my body as a canvas to represent a range of human experiences, especially those of women.

My generation learned to communicate symbolically in order to avoid censorship, and through that language I have addressed political and social issues in my work without becoming overtly ideological. My political expression is more subtle; I am invested in authentic human experience. For me, the material itself is part of the message. Painting a face is not the same as embroidering it. When I pierce the canvas with thread or use real hair, I introduce a layer of sacrifice and resilience. By incorporating embroidery, a medium historically associated with the domestic sphere, I reclaim and vindicate that manual labor. The thread can connect, but it can also tighten or restrict. Likewise, the use of materials such as textiles or metal is never merely decorative; they give the work emotional weight and hybridity.