“I myself am trying to come to terms with human existence—with life, death, fate, and solitude.”
— Carlos Alfonzo
Carlos Alfonzo (Havana, Cuba, 1950–Miami, Florida, 1991) was a Cuban American painter and sculptor whose work explores exile, spirituality, sexuality, and mortality. Trained at San Alejandro and the University of Havana, he settled in Miami following the Mariel boatlift in 1980. His expressive compositions unite recurring bodily symbols with imagery drawn from Afro-Cuban and Western spiritual traditions. His work appeared in the 1991 Whitney Biennial and is held by the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.