Zaida del Río, National Prize for Plastic Arts 2023

January 13, 2024

Zaida's contribution to Cuban art spans more than five decades...

This Prize recognizes the artist for her sensitivity and artistic expression, present in multiple collections such as that of the National Museum of Fine Arts Cuba, the National Council of Plastic Arts, Casa de las Américas, among others (Cubarte)

The 2023 National Prize for Plastic Arts was awarded to the renowned visual artist Zaida del Río, who has shared a recognizable and multiple body of work for her sensitivity and artistic expression.

After deliberations, the jury, presided by Flora Fong, also a National Prize winner in this category, unanimously decided to award this distinction to the painter, engraver, draftsperson, illustrator, scenic designer, sculptor, ceramicist, performer, professor, poetess and musical interpreter, whose contribution to Cuban art spans more than five decades.

Accompanying Fong on the jury were the 2008 National Prize for Plastic Arts winner José Villa Soberón, scenic designer and professor Nieve Laferté, advisor to the Raúl Oliva gallery, visual artist José Omar Torres and art critic and professor Silvia Llanes, art director of Casa de Las Américas, who considered the work of 24 nominated artists from 47 institutions throughout the country.

Zaida del Río is a multidisciplinary Cuban artist from the generation of the 70s, with a style where line stands out, a profuse and fluid figuration, where human beings and nature converge in the bodies of bird-women, and in the representation of vegetation that envelops the essences of the feminine and masculine.

Zaida del Río (Remedios, Villa Clara, 1954) is a storm, a unique force, vibrant, creative. She always seems about to take flight, like her eternal bird-women, to conquer a new way of capturing the richness of her sensitivity, an inner world into which reality enters only to always emerge transformed into art.

This incessant search has made her a painter, muralist, engraver, illustrator, draftsperson, scenic designer, sculptor, ceramicist, performer, poet, professor and musical interpreter… and it never ends.

"Right now, for example, I'm making a series of collages with the dancers from Acosta Danza, something I hadn't done before; I'll show it soon." She says this on the porch of her home in Vedado, Havana, a relatively small space, where the easel and work materials are located, and where the intense colors of the painting unite with the green of the surrounding vegetation.

Zaida, still caught up in the emotion of the news: the 2023 National Prize for Plastic Arts, for reasons of "a lifetime of work, the contribution of more than five decades to Cuban art, and for being an artist with a multiple and recognizable body of work due to her sensitivity and expression," acknowledges that she relies on her craft while waiting for the muses to arrive.

"I work in the mornings, before I used to work at night and sometimes still do; but now I prefer it here, in this space, with the trees in view. Except on weekends, I do it every day, one or two hours, whether I feel like it or not; I work on backgrounds and other things, little by little, until inspiration comes."

While notifications and calls on her phones don't stop, she admits to being surprised, because she didn't expect women to be awarded two years in a row. Flora Fong, who received the highest honor for 2022, and now served as president of the jury, told her upon congratulating her that "justice had been done."

"Women," Zaida explains, "have contributed a great deal to Cuban plastic arts, we have very good female painters. There are many others that should be recognized, like Julia Valdés or Alicia Leal."

Among the 24 artists nominated by 47 institutions throughout the country, the jury decided, unanimously, to honor this representative of the Generation of 70, whose work has, together with many other formal and poetic merits, the distinction of having transcended the limits of the artistic elite and critical recognition, to become familiar to Cubans and highly appreciated.

Regarding what it means to receive a Prize that represents, in a certain way, the pinnacle, she is categorical: "Certainly, it is the most important one that is given, but with it or without it, one must continue contributing to culture.

"It arrives at the best moment, because my work and I have maturity, I have worked hard and I see things differently. I am heading towards other perspectives. I still have paths to travel; I am always working, researching and doing new things."

The dialogue returns to the artistic restlessness that is at the center of her motivations and also of her life, evident on the walls of her home, in the spiritual atmosphere that is breathed there and portrays her:

"I am a very restless person. I have changed techniques on many occasions, and I believe that strengthens my work. The diversity is also in that I have tried to understand many different worlds." And it seems her inquiry will never end. Capturing beauty, reflecting it, is an infinite path; one that Zaida does not abandon, despite the height of her peak.