Osvaldo's profile
I was three years old when my family fled Cuba in 1963. My father, an avid fisherman and award -wining sailor, took us and several friends on an overnight fishing expedition that ended in Key West. We settled in Miami, where I became interested in art, taking painting lessons from the Cuban artist Emilio Estevez. I majored in art at Miami-Dade Community College and at the University of Miami, and earned my MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 1985.
Because I was so young when I came to the U.S., I quickly acclimated myself to American culture. I watched American TV, I listened to American music and I was educated in American schools. This early exposure combined with immersion in the predominantly Latino community of south Florida gave me the impression that I was an average American. The realization that I was not so typical- race, in thought, in action – did not hit me until I moved to Baltimore. This change in attitude spurred my interest in and subsequent investigation of my divided culture.
It was in Baltimore that I came to terms with my African side. My parents didn’t want me to see it, but I knew it was there because of the way I looked. I remember my surrogate grand mothers, old Afro- Cuban women who had shrines in their houses. I would stare at these mysterious collections of objects, unaware of their meaning but deeply aware that they had one, in meticulous arrangements beyond my grasp.
My work is informed by these experiences I had growing up, it has become a hybrid of painting and installation. The fusion of modern techniques and objects with Afro – Cuban Western painting traditions, is an attempt to connect disparate elements and ideas to heal the schism within me brought about by a sense of lost heritage, stolen from me by racism and politics.
In my latest body of work I am incorporating traditions of Baroque painting and pattern into my wall installations. I would like to continue in this direction mixing European and African art traditions.
Osvaldo Mesa
Because I was so young when I came to the U.S., I quickly acclimated myself to American culture. I watched American TV, I listened to American music and I was educated in American schools. This early exposure combined with immersion in the predominantly Latino community of south Florida gave me the impression that I was an average American. The realization that I was not so typical- race, in thought, in action – did not hit me until I moved to Baltimore. This change in attitude spurred my interest in and subsequent investigation of my divided culture.
It was in Baltimore that I came to terms with my African side. My parents didn’t want me to see it, but I knew it was there because of the way I looked. I remember my surrogate grand mothers, old Afro- Cuban women who had shrines in their houses. I would stare at these mysterious collections of objects, unaware of their meaning but deeply aware that they had one, in meticulous arrangements beyond my grasp.
My work is informed by these experiences I had growing up, it has become a hybrid of painting and installation. The fusion of modern techniques and objects with Afro – Cuban Western painting traditions, is an attempt to connect disparate elements and ideas to heal the schism within me brought about by a sense of lost heritage, stolen from me by racism and politics.
In my latest body of work I am incorporating traditions of Baroque painting and pattern into my wall installations. I would like to continue in this direction mixing European and African art traditions.
Osvaldo Mesa
