As a post-revolutionary Cuban born artist, Carlos Gamez de Francisco imbues his portraiture-style artworks with a bright, distorted reality that challenges the classical aesthetics of yesteryear. Through superimposition and manipulation, he deconstructs and reconstructs the figures in his paintings, incorporating his personal experiences and knowledge of historical figures and events.
Francisco's oeuvre reflects the influences of his Cuban upbringing in a Russian governed academia setting, where the emphasis on figurative art was at odds with the censorship of contemporary artistic expression. The artist's nonconformist spirit led him to reexamine the veracity of history and its representation, resulting in a decontextualization of epochs and artistic symbols. This approach allows him to bridge the past and present, creating a connection that challenges our perception of the historical narrative.
Francisco's artistic practice is steeped in a near-obsessive dedication to storytelling and the past, resulting in the creation of an illusory world that provides an escape from reality. Through this process, he transforms classical beauty into a natural process, demystifying its traditional allure while simultaneously redefining it. The result is a provocative and engaging body of work that invites the viewer to question their own understanding of history, beauty, and the human condition.
Gamez de Francisco received his BFA from the Art Institute of Chicago in 2016. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally as well as shown in many private and public collections including the 21c Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, and the Cubaocho Museum in Miami, Florida. Francisco has received numerous awards and commissions including a mural for Google.
