Carlos Quintana (b.1966, Cuba), makes feverish paintings, he creates worlds onto themselves, or rather re-invents our world, but on his own terms. His inaugural exhibition at MARC STRAUS will feature ten paintings and two sculptures, one of the paintings a monumental sixteen by twelve-foot canvas.
His frantic brush strokes and vibrant, jarring color combinations present animals, humans, and hybrids between the two. Unknowable fables and narratives are evident. Ghostly figures riding horses, coy yet disturbing rabbit-headed characters beckoning, a woman in an old-world gown and parasol, twisting masses of seemingly disjointed limbs occupy his spaces. Everything is open. References to historic European painting, Latin-America and Caribbean folklore, and Asian religions can all be glimpsed.
His restless paintings show Quintana consuming this vast area of global visual information and synthesizing it. The work has echoes of Goya and El Greco, but these are more sun-drenched and equatorial. One thinks also of Gauguin, obsessed with trying to share what he has seen. Along with Adrian Ghenie, Quintana is one of the most facile figurative painters today.
Carlos Quintana was born in Havana, Cuba in 1966 and studied painting at The Academy of San Alejandro and the Institute of Design in Havana, Cuba. Quintana has had scores of one-person exhibitions. This summer his show Carlos Quintana: In Finito during the Venice Biennale filled the massive and sumptuously appointed Palazzo Loredan in Venice, just the most recent in a long CV of international recognition throughout Europe and South America. His work can be found in National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana Cuba, Museu Coleção Berardo in Lisbon, Portugal, and many prestigious private collections around the world. Quintana is represented exclusively by MARC STRAUS in New York.
For more information, please contact Emily Birzak, +1 212 510 7646 / emily@marcstraus.com.