Dominica Alcántara exhibits in Miami

Saturday, 02 February 2008 20:07

Miami, FL - Dominica’s artwork is on exhibition at 801 Brickell Ave. Miami, Florida. In the One Brickell Square Building Lobby Opening Reception of the exhibit will be held on Feb 8th from 6pm to 9pm and the exhibit will continue through the month of February.

Dominica Alcántara was born in Camajuaní, Las Villas, Cuba on May 12th, 1923. When she was a small child her parents moved the family to The Canary Islands. There Dominica studied painting, which became her life long passion, at a private academy. The family returned to Cuba when she was a teenager where Dominica continued her studies in painting, learning diverse artistic techniques. As a Cuban exile in America she worked as a teacher and continued her art studies under the tutelage of the late great Spanish painter and professor Ramón Lapayese.

Dominica has a keen ability to transfer vivid colors, as seen through her eyes, to canvas. She uses these colors, not to overshadow her work, but instead to bring realism and life to it. Her illustrations serve to demonstrate that this artist’s Cuban landscapes live within her brush strokes. She also likes to capture the complexity of seemingly simple subjects such as coconuts, fruits and flowers up close and she accomplishes this with mastery and good taste.

Her paintings are imminently sensory. She weaves a tapestry in which what we see with our eyes can be felt, expressing the essence of nature with grand strength through her use of colors and textures. Her paintings of flowers and fruits possess a quality that makes us want to touch and taste them. This painter also achieves grand expression when she recreates plazas. She remakes for us or brings us back to nooks, corners and balconies from our memories. A constant search characterizes her work and that search encompasses the essential values of her culture. However, her subject interest far outreaches the frontiers of her native island to classify them as Caribbean, Canary or Hispanic; without abandoning that which is inherently Cuban, Dominica Alcántara reaches toward conquering a vaster universe.

In spite of her years, Dominica continues to paint, exposing and returning to our lives the great gift of sensing which we can use to contemplate and admire life’s beauty.