National Prize for Plastic Arts 2021 Awarded to Master Alberto Lescay

February 22, 2022

In a ceremony to be held at the National Museum of Fine Arts, the draftsman, painter and sculptor Alberto Lescay Merencio (Santiago de Cuba, 1950) will receive today the National Prize for Plastic Arts 2021. And a cycle of tributes begins that will extend until the end of this year, when the creator will organize his exhibition in that same institution.

Lescay has much to show. He is one of the most prolific creators of the visual arts in Cuba. And his work builds solid bridges with the society that welcomes it. It has been said many times: Lescay is an artist of the people.

His leadership in the Caguayo Foundation has been fundamental in the consolidation of a collective creation, which has as its setting several cities in the country. They are monumental or environmental sculptures that evoke fundamental moments and figures in national history and culture.

Lescay's pieces—from the most realistic to those marked by a distinctly metaphorical vocation—are strongly linked to the evolution of the nation. But his has never been a crude or merely pragmatic message. There is poetry in each work, soul.

In his sculptures, in his paintings and drawings, Lescay makes explicit his deep-rooted relationship with the land. It is a literal concept and also a lyrical truth. Lescay is rooted in his soil... and at the same time, he flies. Paradox is one of the marvels of art.