Gilberto Frómeta Fernández

GILBERTO FRÓMETA FERNÁNDEZ - Havana, 1946 He is a well-known draftsman, painter, engraver and graphic designer. Having studied Commercial Art in the United States in 1958-60, he graduated in 1967 from the National School of Art (ENA) in Havana, and in 1984 obtained a bachelor degree in visual arts, with specialization in graphics, from the Higher Institute of Art (ISA) in Havana. His working experience began as a graphic designer for the magazine Cuba Internacional. Later he was an advisor to the Directorate of Artistic Education of the Cuban Ministry of Culture and in 1978 was director of the National School of Design in Havana. He also worked as a teacher of drawing at the National School of Art. Since 1985 he has been an independent artist, extending his teaching activity to several Latin American countries, among them Mexico, Ecuador and Venezuela. He is a member of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) and of the Experimental Graphics Workshop of Havana. --- VIGNETTES FOR A FRIEND Difficult? Yes, when you have had his friendship, it is difficult to do without it, because you feel that you find yourself in a “space” that excludes second parts. If so, then you have the privilege of sharing his plans, seeing him laugh like a big boy and listening to him tell about his last mischief with color, which one day he gives out with his “mason’s flat brush” like a child who plays to raise a building, to make a world of colors appear that everyone knows could only have been made by him, or perhaps to tell you that his ideas are already others, that now he thinks that his pigments should be caught between jute threads and tiny water drops. He tells you all of this in a whisper and one also remains silent, conscious that one is being part of a new and silent plan and simply because, since you are his friend, he makes you his accomplice. Suddenly one day you enter his domains with him and find paintings with kites, rocks like phalluses, vulvas emerging from erotic stains, small wooden horses – as far as I know, even apparitions. I have seen Cachita* appear on his canvases in order not to miss his feast of colors, and it seems to me that she even laughs, that she is also happy seeing so much “creation” together. [...] * Diminutive for the feminine name Caridad (charity). In this case he is referring to the Virgin of Charity, Cuba’s patroness in the Catholic religion, also known as the deity Oshún in the Afro-Cuban Santeria religion. CARLOS MARTÍ BRENES Cuban Writer