Eduardo Rosales Ruiz found in the cassava an artistic support for his works, a way to approach the primary elements of our Cuban identity. “The spirituality of the aboriginal culture is in the images that they left us, and the fact that still today the cassava lasts as eatable is also a sample of this legacy. On having used the cassava as an artistic support, by using the cassava like artistic support I break with the canons of the plastic creation”.

- How did La curiosa bruma de nuestro pasado arise?

- Sometimes the personal tragedies evoke feelings of the past and make the inspiration sprout; that on one hand, and for the other the motivation of a friend, Andrés Carrera Curvelo, who had the idea of joining a group of persons who investigate the aboriginal culture in the society Victoria de Caonao.

For two years Rosales penetrated into the study of this subject and although the others capture their ideas by means of the writing or the research, he resorted to the visual, remembering always that an image is worth more than 1 000 words.

“During that time there was an empty position as director of the Gallery Alejo Carpentier and it is from this moment that I integrate again the world of the plastic arts. What I have done since then up to date is to renew myself constantly playing with different subjects.”

- Preferences?

- I have always liked tackling the evening hours of the city, taking it as justification, as a topic of my works; and also the man, its conflicts. I recreate streets, corners, perspectives. I incline also for working with the light and the shade.

"Hardly ever one stop to think about what it has done or why it has done it. The majority of my works have a lot to do with the cyclical of life, the concentric circles, the observance of nature. I try to represent what I am interested in of the environment in which I live with its contradictions, its good and bad things.

Inside the painting I prefer the acrylic, the oil needs a long drying process and I am a very dynamic man and I have no patience to wait for something. When I wrap up a work I do not return to it, I do not add any more elements; it is, simply, concluded. I can do another one but it will not be the same because I add other elements".

- What space does the artistic creation occupy in your life?

- The artistic creation is the center of my life. I cannot do another thing that is not thinking what I can take to the linen, it is a part of my motivation to live and to justify my personal problematics.

"He who observes my works grouped in the different series, finds the transit for the different periods of my life and although some of them have been realized in the last nine years they reflect previous experiences. Behind every work is my personal history".

- What criteria do you have with regard to the development of the plastic arts in Camagüey?

- I respect the creative work of the artists of Camagüey, but if there is something that does not allow me to be satisfied is the fact that many repeat the same, especially the subject. If one lives in a world, one is informed and full of all this influence that the world practices on one, we must renew ourselves constantly. Everytime I do a series I try that it does not look like the previous one, even if I tackle the same idea.

"This city has a lot of galleries and there is proliferation. What I believe is that sometimes not everybody is updated in the contemporaneity. It is possible to be a contemporary artist even in the most primitive thing as the drawing, everything depends on the content that you want to capture. If in a work we tackle what worries the today man and perceive a little of what can be the future.

The friend Curvelo offered him the living room of his house, placed very close to San Juan de Dios Square, to turn it more than in a gallery, in this intimate space and simultaneously public that is the Rosales workshop. The name of a permanent exhibit remembers everyone that comes that The sign of the time compromises us. That is the load that Eduardo, like the man and the turtle, always takes on his back.

Translated by BA in English Language, Manuel Barrera Téllez

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