Ofill Echevarria

Ofill Echevarria (born 1972 in Havana, Cuba) is a painter and multimedia artist based in New York City.

Ofill Echevarria
Ofill Echevarria, 2014
Born (1972-03-30) March 30, 1972
Havana, Cuba

Ofill graduated from the Elementary School of Fine Arts '20 de Octubre' in 1986 and from the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts in 1991. As a founder member of the controversially famous Havanan art collective, Arte Calle (1986-1988) [1][2][3][4] becomes part of the Cuban art scene of the late eighties.[5]

In 1991 he traveled to Mexico City to pursue an art scholarship, where he lived for ten years.[6] In 2002, represented by the renowned Praxis International Art - Mexico, which later became the Alfredo Ginocchio Gallery, both in Mexico City, Ofill moved to Miami. In 2005 he moved to New York City, where she currently lives and works.

Since 2001 Ofill has exhibited his work broadly all over Latin America and the United States of America both, individually and participating in many international art fairs and group shows. His work are part of major public and private collections, among which are: Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de La Habana; Museo Nacional de Arte de Mexico; Museum of Latin American Art; Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation; Carnegie Art Museum (Oxnard, California).

In 2013 he launched his book 'El Mundo de Los Vivos I The Real World', which contains several essays from recognized American and Cuban art experts and includes artworks from 2001 to 2012.[7]

Work

Ofill Echevarria's fascination with motion in cityscapes has its origins while the artist was still living in Mexico City, where he developed a series of oil paintings on canvas regarding urban life that later was exhibited at the Multicultural Center of the URI, Kingston.[8]

In 2002 a more specific series of paintings about life in the city and its inhabitants with regard on the business people was exhibited in his, 'Iconos / Reflections',[9] as well as in 'City Escapes' (2004) this iconography of stress becomes sharper, with pictures as 'Soñar Is Forbidden'[10] or 'Ritual de Identidad / The Lost Identity'; "works that bordered on abstraction, and whose titles, often bilingual, alluded in a parallel way to another multitudinous movement: that of the human masses coming from the south to insert themselves in the megalopolises of the north".[11]

Ofill Echevarria's style and technique draws from the tradition of photography, documentary film and painting.[12] Additionally, particularly in those works where motion matters, the artist has been pointed as an exponent of Wet-on-wet painting technique.[13][14]

In 2013, Ofill returns to Mexico with 'Momentum', an exhibition in which "the pace of city life could only be trapped by the fragments that constitute its temporality through a diligent observation". A more abstract series of paintings on urban life "defined by brushwork" was unveiled at the Gabarron Foundation New York in September of the same year. The show included several Pictures-In-Motion about the city of New York, a project that has been part of the artist's pictorial exhibitions since 2011, although it was officially presented throughout 2013.[15][16][17][18]

References
  1. Coco Fusco Dangerous Moves, 2015. p162. "ArteCalle’s last collective endeavour was their 1989 attempt to produce ArteCalle in Concert: Our Return at the theatre in the Museum of Fine Arts. It was supposed to be a multimedia presentation featuring songs with politically scathing lyrics by group member Ofill Echevarría.
  2. Jose Clemente Gascon Martinez (Asociacion Aragoneza de Criticos de Arte) - La Decada Prodigiosa del Arte Cubano Contemporaneo, 2013 p11. "A partir de septiembre de 1986, en el primer año en la Academia de Bellas Artes de San Alejandro, el grupo se fue reduciendo a los miembros más comprometidos con el proyecto, Ofill, Leandro, Serrano, Aldito Menéndez y posteriormente fueron añadidos cuatro nuevos miembros: Ernesto Leal, Erick Gómez, Iván Álvarez y Pedro Vizcaíno. "
  3. Jose Clemente Gascon Martinez (Asociacion Aragoneza de Criticos de Arte) - La Decada Prodigiosa del Arte Cubano Contemporaneo, 2013 p11. "A finales de 1988, Ofill Hechevarría comenzó a utilizar elementos del espectáculo musical en sus performances y grabaciones musicales e influyó en que se reunificaran para el proyecto "Artecalle en Concierto" en el Teatro del Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes..."
  4. Emilio Ichikawa: La Teologia del Arte. Encuentro de la Cultura Cubana. Issue #50 (Plastica: Ofill Echevarria). p.143. "Sus críticos destacan dos hechos: haber estudiado en la Academia San Alejandro y haber pertenecido al grupo Arte Calle (1988), a través del cual reconstruye su participación en la "plástica de los 80", movimiento emparentado con la institución surrealista en el planteamiento de un objetivo trascendente a lo artístico..."
  5. Osvaldo Sánchez, 1997 Mexico City. The Intellectual Author Of The Gioconda exhibit at Nina Menocal gallery. Text appear as it’s been published in English (ArtNexus.com). "Ofill (Havana, 1972) debuted as a member of the action and performance Arte Calle (Street Art) Group, by 1988. While still a student at the San Alejandro Academy -still easel academy-, scored a pattern of unusual radicalism in the esthetician environment -plagued with modern paradigms- of Cuban art scene of the time."
  6. Carol Damian: The City In Action And Reaction. ArtNexus. Issue #55. "He graduated from the prestigious San Alejandro Academy in 1991 and then went to Mexico to pursue an art scholarship. He stayed for almost ten years..."
  7. BOSTON, Oct. 21, 2013 / PRNewswire / Book Release: Ofill Echevarria's El Mundo de los Vivos | The Real World (Un-Gyve Press) ISBN 978-0-9829198-1-1.
  8. Meaghan Wims: Urban Life, Mona Lisa Inspire Cuban Artist. The University of Rhode Island Daily Student Newspaper. Issue #39. "Echevarria's fascination with motion in cityscapes is evident in each painting, whether it be the blue swirls of a man hitting an air bag in "Show Car," or the vibrant yellows and oranges of suited men on an escalator in "Ascension." "The city has always fascinated me, but I have a certain kind of reaction against city life, towards the things that cause stress, and just all the movement," Echevarria said."
  9. Emilio Garcia Montiel: Review of Iconos/Reflections exhibit at Praxis International Art (Mexico). ArtNexus. Issue #45. "Ten oil paintings suffice to distill the dimensions of this topic, as much as in its subjects as in the urban landscape that distinguishes them. There is an apparent redundancy on the surface of these large-format pieces: men clad in suits of like colors, carrying similar suitcases; faces and bodies of imprecise contours inhabiting a public space almost as diffuse as they are."
  10. Carol Damian: The City In Action And Reaction. ArtNexus. Issue #55. "One of his most recent works features an exhausted businessman, collapsed on a bed, briefcase still in hand. His body is dramatically foreshortened, undoubtedly in homage to Andrea Mantegna’s Dead Christ (1466)."
  11. Adriana Herrera: El Mundo de los Vivos. The Real World. The Gabarron Foundation. Arte-al-Dia International. Issue #145. "...works that bordered on abstraction, and whose titles, which were often bilingual, alluded in a parallel way to another multitudinous movement: that of the human masses coming from the south to insert themselves in the megalopolises of the north."
  12. Madeline Izquierdo de Campos: Review of 'Momentum' exhibit at Alfredo Ginocchio gallery. ArtNexus Issue #89. "From the artistic point of view, the work draws from the tradition of photography, documentary film and painting, which can be appreciated in different accents, renaissance perspectives, expressionist theater drama, surreal ghostly visions, visual liberations that bring it closer to abstraction, and chromatic restrictions marked tensions reminiscent of Malevich’s Suprematism."
  13. Carol Damian: The City In Action And Reaction. ArtNexus Issue #55. "Actually, the effect is entirely invented by the artist with paint, and it is successful due to the very traditional means that inform every step of the process. He begins by making a careful grid to organize the surface of the composition and then draws his image on the grid. This is followed by meticulous oil painting that is a careful subterfuge for what appears to be a blur."
  14. Sotheby's, Latin American art. 16–17 November 2011. Lot 250. 'Deshoras': signed lower left and titled upper right; also dated Miami, FL Nov.03 and inscribed: "Pintado al humedo en 1 (una) session de 33 horas continuas" on the reverse.
  15. Brenda J. Caro Cocotle: "Fragments Of Time". "Momentum", catalogue. Alfredo Ginocchio gallery, 2013. "Ofill Echevarría’s work is also a careful study on the possibilities that painting has in relation to the image and the elements that offers the environment itself; an analysis observed on his production called Pictures-In-Motion, where he "seeks to create an artistic document as realistic as an animated photography", as the artist itself has call it."
  16. Carol Damian: The City In Action And Reaction. ArtNexus. Issue #55. "Everything is in constant motion, presented with a rhythmic cadence defined by brushwork and a monochromatic palette, often so distorted that the image borders on the totally abstract."
  17. Adriana Herrera: El Mundo de los Vivos. The Real World. The Gabarron Foundation, New York. Arte-al-Dia International. Issue #145. "It is not by chance that in El mundo de los vivos. The Real World, the videos slow down the transits and conjugate in a different way not only the tempo of the gaze but perception itself. And this play that slows down the burst of images is parallel to the high speeds of the camera that teaches us to see the human groups as luminous traces of colors in flight..."
  18. Emilio Ichikawa: Ofill Echevarría expone 'In Situ' en Valencia. Diario de Cuba, DDC. 2 de Febrero de 2017. "The audiovisual work that he presents, 'Looking For Abstraction (At The Jungle)' is an atypical publicity of New York City... The Real Estate is here the actual state in which the artist’s pictorial visions become habitable."
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