Arturo Cuenca

American, born Cuba, 1955–2021

Although working from photo documentation, Cuban-born American artist Arturo Cuenca was interested in ideas and the process of visualization. He created an internal vision from exterior “realities” or what the eye sees. Just as he played with the experience of “seeing”, he also played with language, making text and letters an inherent part of his work.

Cuenca studied art and literature at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes San Alejandro and the Escuela Nacional de Instructores de Arte in Havana, later teaching briefly at the Instituto Preuniversitario 8 de Octubre in El Cotorro. Before leaving Cuba for Mexico in 1989, and for the United States in 1991, he received several prizes for engraving, photography, and installation.

Widely exhibited nationally and internationally, Cuenca was the subject of the 1995 solo exhibition Arturo Cuenca: Modernbund at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College. That same year, the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale presented Sharing Roots: Cuenca and Gory. His work is held in numerous permanent collections, including the Art Space Gallery in Rotterdam, the Museo de Arte Moderno in Caracas, and the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havana.

Bio courtesy of the Brondesbury Art Collection and Cernuda Arte