Background
Born and raised in a small rural town in the province of Pinar del Rio, Cuba, Carlos Luna has always been an artist. He recalls making a painting of his mother at the age of seven.
- Photos
- Works
- Photos
- Works
Carlos Luna
Edit ProfileCareer
Because of his early vocation for the visual arts, Carlos Luna was admitted at the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts in Havana. He then transferred to The National School of Visual Arts (ENAP) and later to the Instituto Superior de Arte ( Industry Standard Architecture), both also in Havana, during one of Cuba’s most innovative and vigorous art movements, the so-called “Art of the 80"s”, which put Cuba back on the map of the international art world. Duality is a common theme in Cuban art, and Luna’s art embodies the internal struggles of an artist who has been uprooted.
Born in Cuba in 1969, Luna was a part of the 1980s artistic rebellion, and he relocated to Puebla, Mexico in 1991.
During the decade in Mexico, Luna enriched his unique style incorporating Cuban icons such as his Guajiro-Manitoba and Rooster-Manitoba with a Mexican bravado of cultural practice and language. His art references the artistic traditions of the Cuban Havana School influenced by Wifredo Lam, the European Cubist paintings of French artist Fernand Léger, the storytelling of Mexican muralism and even the horror vacui of the Latin American baroque.
The iconography and the stories told in Luna’s paintings are at once particular incidents and universal themes. They bring to consciousness the ordinary life experiences: passion, violence, ambition, conflict, humor, irony, and sensuality.
Among more than 60 exhibitions in museums and institutions throughout the country are the Pablo Picasso Ceramics/Carlos Luna Paintings Show (Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, Florida).
Carlos Luna: The Great Mambo (Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, California). Bass Museum of Art (Miami Beach, Florida). American University Museum (Washington, District of Columbia).
Polk Museum of Art (Lakeland, Florida).
Susquehanna Art Museum (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania). Art Gallery of Lebanon Valley College (Annville, Pennsylvania), and Heather James Fine Art (Palm Desert, California).
"Indeed, Luna"s talent is such that, although he doesn"t exactly eclipse Picasso, he holds his own alongside the master."
Carlos Luna has maintained an active presence in numerous international shows in Latin America and Europe, most notably as a special guest of the Salon d"Automne in Paris (France, 2012). The interest in Carlos Luna"s work is also evident in the growing demand for it at auctions all over the United States. and especially at the major auction houses in New New York
"Luna’s series of paintings show how he also straddles cultures--Cuban, Mexican and North American--and incorporates his impressions into color and image saturated paintings that recall early 1960s popular art".
