Santiago Rodríguez Olazábal was born in 1955 in Havana, Cuba. He studied at the Academia Nacional de Arte San Alejandro from 1972 to 1975, mastering classical techniques that he would later infuse with profound spiritual insight. A consecrated Babaláwo and priest of Ifá, he has lived in constant dialogue with the orishas and the sacred narratives of the Yoruba tradition since childhood, making religion not merely a theme but the very foundation of his existence and artistic vision.
At the heart of Olazábal’s oeuvre lies an intense aesthetic and intellectual dialogue with the divinities of Ifá. Emerging in the mid-1980s during Cuba’s vibrant artistic renaissance, he became instrumental in bringing previously esoteric knowledge of Afro-Cuban religions into the public sphere of contemporary art. His paintings, drawings, and mixed-media works—often executed on cardboard with ink, thread, collage, and found ritual elements—are dense with symbolic iconography, hybrid figures, and metaphorical references that explore ancestral memory, spiritual transformation, suffering, resilience, and the mysterious forces that shape human destiny. Merging Western artistic methodologies with the syncretic richness of Yoruba-derived spirituality, he creates images that are at once intimate and monumental, painful and luminous, personal and universal.
His exhibitions have unfolded across Cuba and the international stage, from the Havana Biennial to galleries and museums in the United States, Europe, and Latin America. Olazábal’s work resides in prominent collections including the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havana and numerous private and institutional holdings worldwide. Through a language that is both sacred and profoundly contemporary, Santiago Rodríguez Olazábal transforms the invisible currents of spirit and ancestry into visible form, offering a powerful testament to the living legacy of Afro-Cuban spirituality and its capacity to illuminate the deepest truths of the human experience.