“I have a very emotional relationship with the sea, not only because I live on an island, but also because of all the history and spirituality that it evokes. In Cuba, the sea is related to various Catholic and Afro-Cuban deities. But, above all, when a Cuban looks at the sea, he remembers the isolation and pain of thousands of families, as well as feelings of anxiety, or experiences the psychological frustration of inhabiting a divided country, for which the sea is like a wall or a barbed-wire fence delimiting your destiny.” - Yoan Capote
Yoan Capote, a Cuban artist from Pinar del Río, is a multidisciplinary creator whose practice—spanning sculpture, installation, painting, photography, and video—translates the intimate tensions of the psyche into potent material metaphors. Best known for his monumental seascapes composed of thousands of hand-forged fishhooks, Capote conjures seductive horizons that, upon closer inspection, reveal the perilous bite of migration, desire, and containment. Deeply rooted in the Cuban experience of isolation and longing, his work bridges the personal and the collective, the visible and the unconscious, forging analogies between everyday objects and the invisible architectures of power, memory, and human fragility while earning him distinctions such as the UNESCO Prize and Guggenheim Fellowship.