Foosaner Art Museum Features Cuban Daydreams July 14-Sept. 9
MELBOURNE, FLA. – In the Eau Gallie Arts District, the Foosaner Art Museum, Florida Institute of Technology, presents Cuban Daydreams: Dionel Delgado July 14 – Sept. 9. The Havana oil painter, noted for vintage-style Cuban art, has had major exhibits in Cuba, Mexico and Panama as well as duo-exhibitions in 2010 with colleague Roberto Alfonso at the Cuba! Gallery of Fine Art in Melbourne, Fla.
The Foosaner exhibition will showcase Delgado’s large-scale “magazine cover” paintings, which are reminiscent of Norman Rockwell’s style but depict everyday life in Cuba. A resident of Haban Vieja (Old Havana), his inspiration comes from the characters that inhabit the surrounding streets near his studio. His art, which appears on the covers of four different magazines published in Mexico, began as a graduate thesis project.
“Each cover portrays some of the complex dramas of present-day Cuba, as depicted by local and foreign photographers in individual and collective exhibitions, but most significantly, as reflected in books,” writes art critic and curator Nelson Herrera Ysla. “A huge wave of images, like a tsunami…have been printed in black and white and in full color all over the world in an attempt to figure out what life in Cuba has been like for the past 30 years…“
Delgado is also a cartoonist, illustrator and painter of large-scale landscapes. He travels his country and takes photographs of the hills, mountains and forests that inhabit the canvas of his landscape paintings.
“I work with oil paint, which has a wealth of benefits. It gives me time with my landscapes. As each layer is drying, I can work on multiple paintings at one time and take photos,” he said.
Delgado graduated from the prestigious San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts and studied for three years at the School of Crafts, Pablo de la Torriente Brau and at the Workshop of Manero in Havana.
A bilingual catalog will be available for purchase in the Museum Store.
The Foosaner Art Museum is located at 1463 Highland Ave. in the Eau Gallie Arts District of Melbourne. Its hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Thursday, 10 a.m.-7 p.m.; and Sunday 1-5 p.m. General admission is $5; $2, seniors, children and students with I.D.; free for museum members, Florida Tech faculty, staff and students with I.D. Thursdays are free for everyone.
Special rates and tours are available for groups of eight or more. For more information, call (321) 242-0737 or visit http://www.foosanerartmuseum.org/
Photo: Dionel Delgado, Untitled, (“Historic Flavor”/ “The Taste of History”) oil on fabric, 180 x 130 cm; 2008, Collection Norman Bardavid
