'De donde crece la palma' (From where the palm tree grows) II | September 2021
A special collaboration with Havana Art Weekend
De donde crece la palma (From where the palm tree grows) is a special collaboration between Havana Art Weekend and La Pera Projects that will present the work of young Cuban artists working inside and outside of Cuba. Half of the profits from the sales will be donated to the Solo el Amor (SEA), an independent initiative based in Havana, in solidarity with the current moment that the Cuban people are living.
This second capsule presents artists Jenny Feal, María de los Ángeles Rodríguez Jiménez, and Nelson Barrera, with a series of works with biographical nuances that emerge from migration stories, religious syncretism, and socio-political stories that permeate our daily lives.
Jenny Feal (b. 1991, Havana, Cuba) lives and works in Lyon.
Feal's installations are poetic statements on harsh topics. Her work reflects her experience of Cuba's history, bearing witness to the living conditions and fragility of a daily life dictated by the imposition of political ideologies. She uses natural materials such as clay, paper, tree leaves, and wood, which she associates with personal items that build up a testimony of Havana's living conditions and history.
The artist graduated from the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes San Alejandro (2009), École Supérieure d’Art et de Design Marseille-Méditerranée (2013), she received MFA from the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Lyon (2016). Her works had been shown at Lyon Contemporary Art Biennale (2019), Havana Biennial (2012, 2015 et 2019), the Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2014), the Villa Médicis in Roma (2015), the Maison du livre de l’image et du son in Villeurbanne (2017), the Fondation Salomon in Annecy (2017), among others. Most recently her work was exhibited at the Fondation d’Entreprise Martell in Cognac.
María de los Ángeles Rodríguez Jiménez (b. 1992, Holguin, Cuba) lives and works in New York.
María de los Ángeles Rodríguez Jiménez's body of work references her story of migration from Cuba, leaving the island and settling in the United States, and confronting feelings of being torn between two conceptions of herself divided along these national boundaries. Her sculptural paintings—skeletons of industrial materials sheathed in textile skins—allude to a body that cannot be adequately defined or contained, marked by the awareness that it does not belong entirely to any one place.
She was born in 1992 in Holguín, Cuba. She then immigrated to New Orleans, Louisiana in 2004. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in 2015. She attended the Skowhegan School for Painting and Sculpture Residency in 2016. Maria de los Angeles Rodriguez Jimenez is currently a Master of Fine Arts (Painting) candidate at Yale University. Her work is currently on view at group shows at David Castillo Gallery in Miami and Black Gotham in New York City.
Nelson Barrera (b. 1988, Matanzas, Cuba) lives and works in Havana.
Nelson Barrera's work reflects on micro-stories and how they influence socio-political and cultural narratives through their underground network. Specific experiences, such as living temporarily in contexts like Michoacán and Bogotá, have influenced a body of work focused on observing and reimagining nature where ethics and aesthetics are juxtaposed as a starting point for creating oblique narratives that imagine alternative existences.
In 2010, he co-founded Balada Tropical, a multidisciplinary artists’ collective that sets out to create large scale sensory experiences ranging from the painting, installation and poetry to performance, sound, gastronomy etc. He participated in numerous exhibitions such as the Havana Biennials (2012, 2015 and 2019); the second edition of the Havana Art Weekend (2019). He was bestowed several residencies, including Guapamacataro Center for Art & Ecology residency (2016) Michoacán, México, and, recently, the FLORA ars+natura residency in Bogotá, Colombia.
Havana Art Weekend is a project founded by Direlia Lazo, a four-day program of exhibitions, performances, site-specific projects in artist studios and unconventional spaces in Havana during December.
Solo el Amor (SEA) is a support network created by Cuban friends in the arts, inside and outside of Cuba, whose mission is to deliver hand-in-hand donations to those most in need in different provinces of the country.
If you have any questions or are interested in the works by this artist, please contact Blanca or Clara at info@laperaprojects.art