Omar Godines "The Creed". Painting and Graphics

A new project by Omar Godines presents a series of paintings and graphic works depicting an artistic analysis of ancient, pre-Columbian and Afro-Cuban myths in the symbolic interpretation of images, their contact with Russian culture, thoughts about the eternal secrets of being, expressed in modern plastic language.

Latin American art cannot be imagined without a special storyline associated with myths, rites, and cosmology. Having arisen in Cuban art in the 30s of the XX century, this line, which determined the basic principle of the national identity of culture, in combination with modern world achievements in art, was developed in the works of modern Cuban artists.

Mythological thinking is a characteristic feature of the work of Omar Godines. In addition to the Afro-Cuban theme characteristic of Cuban culture, Godines’s vast repertoire of plastic works is devoted to the art of the inhabitants of the pre-Columbian era, secretly and sibony Indians, whose distinguishing feature of the artistic taste was abstraction. But not only the return to the origins and deep philosophical reflections on the eternal secrets of being excite the author. In his plastic myths - and the magic of creating man, and man’s place in the universe, and the entire volume of thoughts, feelings and problems of modern man. Essentially, it is a translation into the language of plasticity of sensations, thoughts, actions, and phenomena. An important aspect of the artist’s work is the study of the processes of artistic contrasts, mergers and contacts of various civilizations.

“For Omar Godines, the connection between man and nature is a constant mystery. This mystery is the relationship between reality and myth. The drawing by Omar Godines reliably supports the picturesque shell, charged with lyricism. His painting is extremely poetic ”(Valdo González, Bohemia magazine p. 58. 06/30/1993).

“The most strikingly drawn thematic line of works by Omar Godines is an artistic analysis of the most ancient African-American culture, the processes of fusion of different cultures, their refraction in their own world and in modern art… However, such a deeply subjective and intuitive method of mastering the artistic space, rooted in the national tradition, is not prevents the artist from using the full range of modern art tools. Working with a constantly updated occult language, addressing the eternal themes of the sacred in man, Omar Godines can certainly count on an active response from the viewer ”(Elena Romanova, art critic. 1995).

Omar Godines was born in Havana in Cuba, he graduated from the Havana Art College "San Alejandro" and the Moscow State Art Institute named after V.I. Surikova in Moscow. Member of the project "Caribbean Art Today" in the "Document" (Kassel, Germany. 1994), curator of the Festival of Iberoamerican Culture in Russia (2000-2003). Member of the jury of the animated film contest of the III open film festival of the non-fiction animated film “Frescoes of the North” (2007). Personal exhibitions in Cuba, Austria, Mexico, USA, Spain, Czech Republic and Russia. The artist’s works are in the collections of: the Center for the Development of Fine Arts (Cuba), the Museum of the Americas (USA), the Museum of Albrusia (Italy), the Museum of the Central House of Artists, the Museum of Fine Arts (Kaluga), the Ivanovo Regional Art Museum, the State Museum of V.V. Mayakovsky, the Museum "Zverev Center for Contemporary Art", etc.