Martínez Pedro, the painter of the waters

August 8, 2018

In this Havana summer, the National Museum of Fine Arts makes it possible for visitors to the Universal Art Building of the institution to come into contact with the work of one of the creators who in the middle of the last century achieved a distinctive mark in the local sphere: Luis Martínez Pedro.

Since that time, when Martínez Pedro was mentioned, the reference to the waters surrounding the island immediately appeared. For many, he was the painter of the sea. His personal exhibition in 1963, titled Territorial Waters, made him an artist of renown beyond specialized circles, thanks to reproductions of the works from the series in widely distributed publications and the use of those images in consumer articles.

The painter knew that he had found a well-prepared path to social recognition. Under the titles Signs of the Sea and Other Signs of the Sea, he displayed new creations in 1969 and 1970 at Fine Arts. Criticism helped establish the successful notion of these series.

Upon revisiting the paintings and drawings of the artist, one can have a much more balanced view of his work, and at the same time, consider how, beyond enthusiasm and fashion, the creator left an appreciable mark in the thematic approach for which he is admired and remembered.

The artist's perspective stands out. Unlike most Cuban painters who reflected the sea in their productions, Martínez Pedro left behind mere seascape, observed from the coast. He painted the sea, immersed himself in its waters, positioned himself as protagonist and witness to that nearby immensity.

And that is what the new Fine Arts exhibition addresses, as its central axis: Martínez Pedro: Water Everywhere, in which one must recognize the curators' ingenuity in highlighting the theme from the first syllable of the painter's surname, to the appropriation of a verse from the poem The Island Weighs Heavy, by the great Cuban writer Virgilio Piñera.

The sea is pure sea, but not just any sea. It is the color of the Gulf Stream current, tinted by sargassum, or the serene intensity of the seas adjacent to the island in its shallower places. It is sometimes a contemplative gesture and other times a calculated turbulence. Although, almost always, it leaves the viewer with the unease of challenges.

But if something continues to surprise in these series, it is the capacity to develop—and even exhaust—the theme without resorting to any figurative notion, based on abstraction. And it is not a matter of mere flirtation with that aesthetic of pictorial representation, but of a creed firmly assumed by the artist from much earlier.

This summer's exhibition at Fine Arts does not limit itself to placing the artist in his rightful place within the Cuban abstractionist movement, but contextualizes his production, which rounds out the collection curated by Odalys Borges—author along with Raisa Ruiz of the book Revelations, memories of the artist's work and Israel Castellanos.

Source: Granma