Open exhibition of Diana Balboa at Galería Carmen Montilla

May 21, 2019

Diana Balboa: Original and Multiple is the title of the exhibition by that renowned Cuban engraver and painter (Cienfuegos, 1945) that was inaugurated this Thursday the 16th, at 4:00 in the afternoon, at the Carmen Montilla gallery belonging to the Office of the Historian of the City.

The exhibition, which will remain open to the public until next June, is made up of about fifty pieces grouped together in sets and created using various techniques.

In dialogue with Periódico Cubarte, Balboa recalled that historically engraving has been in service of painting, that is, "by tradition the great masters would create the work and, then, assistants or master engravers would be in charge of reproducing—through engraving on metal or stone—those paintings". The objective was—she says—"to include those images in books and thus achieve greater presence", therefore engraving was considered "the little orphan of the plastic arts" and was something like "in parallel".

Time has passed and today engraving has become a major art form: that is, perhaps, the objective of Original and Multiple: to go from engraving to painting, but "it has been a long and complex process", confesses the creator who has taken pieces made by her and "and the same images and the same concepts I have been evolving through other engraving techniques: in other words, I make, for example, a woodcut (wood engraving) I print it and, once the edition is finished, I delight in adding a paper pulp that offers a volumetric result. That same image I can take to the lithographic technique. When I have completed that process, then is when I paint the painting. It is a very labor-intensive process, but it offers very diverse and interesting results", she says.

The exhibition is organized around 10 sets…

"Exactly, they are sets in which fabric appears, engraving on wood, stone or metal… it is the same concept, but seen from different techniques of the visual arts. The result is that each piece has its own value because it is the same work reinterpreted and therefore, the result is different. That's what it's about: creating surprise and expectation in me and, consequently, in the viewer.

It is an exhibition in which one appreciates works of much color and others of great economy…

That is another of the characteristics: the diverse and the different in each set. Precisely, they are leaps of color and also of drawing because it transforms as one goes about creating it. It is not about reproductions of one another. No, they are like stampings of the same concept and of the same idea, but totally different."