“Silent and mysterious large-format paintings, expressionistic portraits, and small creations—with rich textures and a certain poetic and spontaneous air—are the main tracks of my creativity. My work exudes the beauty and deterioration of the urban setting, as it transmits the anxiety and marvel that the world, in equal parts, provokes. Art, then, is everything; it’s a way of life. It’s a constant process that dissolves into existence. At times, it’s an instrument; at others, it’s a gesture, and sometimes it’s the translation of an image or revelation. I believe in the importance of art as a personal process.” — José Manuel Mesías
José Manuel Mesías, a Cuban artist from Havana, is a multidisciplinary creator whose practice weaves painting, drawing, sculpture, video, and installation into a poetic archaeology of memory, history, and everyday life. With a keen eye for the discarded and the overlooked, he collects fragments of Cuban reality — found objects, forgotten stories, and provisional architectures — transforming them into hybrid works that blur the boundaries between fact and fiction, the personal and the collective. Rooted in rigorous drawing and a deep engagement with Cuban history, his art interrogates official narratives while celebrating the beauty of the fragmentary, the ephemeral, and the seemingly inconsequential.