Sobre el bien, el mal y una isla / About Good&Evil and an Island; was one in a group of six big format pieces I made for my exhibition Los hijos de los dioses / Children of the Gods. First shown at NJ'Ars Atelier in 1999. The show was later expanded to eight big format canvases and ten works on paper and exhibited in 2000 at Agustin Rivero Gallery, Coral Gables, FL. Both events had a special appearance and presentation by Zoé Valdés, and each show had its own catalogue with an essay by the mega-famous Cuban writer. These shows had great press coverage and were very well received by the critics and the public.
This painting was intended to be my self portrait-depicted as the Devil, as per an old Afro-Cuban legend: (...cuenta una ancestral leyenda Afrocubana que un ser diabólico llamado Okurri Borokú (Algunos creen que es Echú, un camino oscuro de Elegguá), cerró todos los caminos de Cuba. La única forma de lograr abrirlos era si alguien podía tocar el tambor batá por más tiempo que el diablo podía bailar sin cansarse...) "Once upon a time, there was an evil being, Okurri Borokú (some believe him to be a dark side of Elegguá), who closed all the paths of Cuba. The only way to get them open again was to find someone who could play de Batá drums for a much longer time than Okurri could dance..."
On each side panel there are Spanish writings which poetically offer an explanation of the event told by the legend: (…pero un día la felicidad huyó... se cerraron misteriosamente los caminos de Cuba. Okurri Borokú, diablo cruel y caprichoso, celoso de la dicha de los hombres embrujó la libertad, hechizó la isla…) "One day happiness fled.... mysteriously all paths of Cuba were shut close. Okurri Borokú, most cruel and capricious devil, jealous of the joy of men, enchanted liberty, put a spell on the island".
Some of these words were taken from Cuban folklorist Rogelio Martinez Fure's version of the mythical story.
That's all folks!
La hechizó, y de que manera.
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