Fabian Peña
Bio
Fabian Peña was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1976. He currently lives and works in Miami, Florida, since 2006. Fabian graduated from the Superior Institute of Arts in Havana, in 2003. Peña has worked as part of the duo “Elsoca & Fabian” (1999-2007) and with a group of artists in the “Colectivo Enema” (2000-Present). Recent solo exhibitions include: Subliminal, David Castillo Gallery, Miami, Florida, USA (2011), GRIZZZ, Magnan Projects, New York, USA (2008) and Frozen Moment, Bernice Steinbaum Gallery, Miami, Florida, USA (2008). His work has been presented in group shows including Amerika, David Castillo Gallery, Miami Beach, Florida, USA (2014), Global Caribbean V, Duke University, Little Haiti Cultural Center, Miami, Florida, USA (2013), Cuba Now, 21c Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, USA (2011), Cintas Finalists Exhibition at Freedom Tower, Miami-Dade College in Miami, Florida, USA (2011), Aesthetics & Values 2011, Frost Art Museum, Miami, Florida, USA (2011), New Work Miami 2010, Miami Art Museum, Miami, Florida, USA (2010), Dead or Alive at Museum of Arts & Design, New York, USA (2010), Cuba! Artists Experience Their Country, Hunterdon Museum of Art, Clinton, New Jersey, USA (2008), Killing Time, Exit Art, New York, USA (2007), Waiting List (Time and Transition in Contemporary Cuban Art), Mestna Galerija, Ljubljana, Slovenia (2006), Landings 1, at Conkal Arte Contemporaneo/CAC. Ex-Convent of Conkal, Mérida, México (2004), VIII Havana Biennial at Wifredo Lam Contemporary Art Center, Havana, Cuba (2003).
Statement
My work constitutes a kind of personal therapy and response to certain
existential problems that affect me. It is the means I use to try to understand and
reinterpret the past and the present. My practice is similar to that of an editor,
where actions such as collecting, classifying, cutting, and reassembling
fragments to create new narratives are substantial steps within my work, which
draws from archival images extracted from both universal and personal history.
The materials I use become protagonists of the represented scene. I transform
both organic materials and found objects, granting them qualities and meanings
that transcend their original utility and value. These materials are conditioned by
a previous function and history, which I deconstruct through various mediums
such as installation, sculpture, objects, drawing, and painting, in order explore
themes of identity, personal and collective memory, displacement, power, the
effects of ideological propaganda on contemporary society, and impermanence.
Within my experimental process, I redesign my own crafting techniques and
production methods. I strive to create a poetic language that stimulates the
viewer’s sensory and intellectual experience on different levels.
My work is located at the intersection between the scatological and the
extraordinary, the organic and the artificial, the visible and the non-evident, the
real and the fictitious, small and the immense, questioning the present
contradictions between form and content, as well as the artwork itself and the
historical object as cultural products.
