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Description
Oscar Alfonso Acosta (b. 1952) is a Cuba-based painter and sculptor with a dramatic life story and rare body of work. Born to a family of Cuban creatives and artisans, Alfonso showed artistic talent early in life and by high school was participating in drawing contests, during which he also learned and explored different media of creating, such as papier-mâché.
Early in adult life, his artistic skills served him well in the challenging Cuban economy, including allowing him to specialize in the restoration of period furniture when not creating art. He was also a professional journalist in the 1970s, during which he was deployed as a war correspondent and subsequently injured in February 1978 during combat in Angola, for which he lost a leg. During his recovery he recommitted himself to his art as a psychological therapy and produced a series based on African figures. This series was soon noticed and then exhibited in Cuba’s National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana, gaining him national exposure in the nation’s highest art circles.
By the new century, in 2001, he began to be represented by the important Galería Pintores de la Plaza, which was under the purview of the Complejo Habana Vieja de Fondo Cubano de Bienes Culturales (Old Havana Complex of the Cuban Cultural Property Fund). As a result of becoming part of that key Cuban network, he then joined the Festival of the Arts Community Complex in the renowned Paseo del Prado, which was directed by Cecilio Avilé, the noted artist, animation film director, and professor at the Higher Institute of Design. Alfonso subsequently became part of this additional group of artisans and painters who would exhibit their works there.
Through his lifelong arts career, Alonso has won numerous awards and recognitions, including Third Prize in the 1999 ACLIFIM Fine Arts Contest, and then Second Prize the following year in 2000. He has also received Special Recognitions from The Cuban Fund of Cultural Good (1991) and the Casa de la Cultura for the ACLIFIM festival in 2000, as well as A Letter of Recognition from the Embassy of Ethiopia in 1986. He has developed an international following with collectors in France, Italy, Spain, Chile, and North America. Alfonso’s work has been exhibited in leading Cuban cultural institutions including the National Museum of Fine Arts, Casa del Africa Museum, Casa de la obra Pía Museum, and the famed Plaza Hotel in Havana.
As a diverse and multidisciplinary artist, Alfonso’s art is not bound by a particular technique, style or artistic theme, but by his preference in each given period of his career. His visual representation ranges from academic to figurative to abstract. This particular piece is from Alfonso’s Instrumentos (Instruments) series and depicts five enigmatic and otherworldly forms. They are spoons, but also double as mirrors, each with an eye at its center. They have layered meanings, but a core message Alfonso is speaking to is the both utilitarian and symbolic needs of human beings as creators of the universe. Cutlery is inherently utilitarian in value and technical, and this is a statement on the usefulness and necessity of food. This association with the practical is elevated through the infusion of the spiritual and subliminal into the forms through the surrealist rock-like bases, the coloring of the background, as well as through the inclusion of eyes.
Stylistically, the mystical and beautiful in each one is meant to contrast with the aggressive and sometimes interpretative message that the viewer may intuit from its elements of visual darkness and rough angularity. These darker aspects may be associated with the context and meaning of these basic essentials (food, utensils) in the daily life of Cubans still on the island, as well as the perceptions of vanity and inner self reflection that are connected to mirrors.
Lastly, this donation presents American audiences a rare opportunity to view one of his works away from the island.
Date Digital
9-20-2024
Date Original
2023
Format
acrylic and mixed media on paper