Can you tell us about your trajectory as an artist?

I use the printmaking technique called collography because it is the most suitable for expressing what I want to say. Collography consists of creating images with collaged materials and then inking them to create relief in the final print. I like it because it is the technique that allows me to work in large formats, and its textured, layered craftsmanship fascinates me. Clothing is the skin I give to my figures depending on what I want to express. I enjoy the process tremendously.

In terms of subject matter, I use more personal narratives. However, characters such as Sikán, the fish, the goat, and the snake remain recurrent motifs in my work. To develop these characters, I use crumpled paper to evoke the same symbolism from previous works. It is the exact same figuration that I use when I refer specifically to a scene or detail from Afro-Cuban mythology, even if I may reinterpret them to say something different. But they are fixed elements in my work.

There are also things in my work that I cannot explain. For example, the latent tension in many of my compositions… I did not design it, it was not preconceived, it simply emerged. I say that I am always accompanied by something like a good sign, a good companion: intuition. Perhaps my work is that—things I have inside that, once externalized, represent burdens that I cannot live with or carry with me.

The eyes in the faces of my characters leave a huge impression on people; they are what intrigues them. The eyes look directly at you, the viewer. You cannot hide; wherever you move, they are always there watching you, being complicit in what they are seeing.

How did your interest in Afro-Cuban culture and mythology arise?

Many things drew me to Afro-Cuban cultures. This interest arose from recommendations I got from professors to read writers such as Lydia Cabrera, as well as topics on the African diaspora, especially mythological stories and history, such as those of the Abakuá fraternity, which originated in Cuba from West African roots in the early 19th century.

In my grandmother’s house there was also a poster of the film One Way or Another (1977), directed by the Afro-Cuban filmmaker Sara Gómez. It may also have been the fact that my uncle had among his books “Los Ñáñigos” (1982) by Enrique Sosa and a catalog of the retrospective exhibition held in Paris of the surrealist master Wifredo Lam, which made me realized that most artists who were Afrodescendant worked with themes such as Santería, Vodou, Spiritism, and Palo Monte.

In particular, the narrative of the Abakuá secret society seemed very visual and vivid to me, as if it were unfolding before my eyes. I imagined faces appearing and disappearing, even though in the Abakuá society there is no figurative iconography. Then I saw that there was a possibility—an entire world that I could perfectly create, based on the original stories.