![\"Danzarines](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Danzarines_Dancers_1969.jpg\")
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Danzarines (Dancers), 1969. Photos of Rafael Soriano’s work courtesy of the LBMA.<\/em><\/p>\n The nearly 100 drawings, paintings and pastels currently displayed at the Long Beach Museum of Art (LBMA) tell the strikingly beautiful story of an abstract artist uprooted, Rafael Soriano (1920-2015), who left his native home of Cuba in search of artistic freedom.<\/p>\n Born in the town of Cidra in Matanzas, a Cuban province on the Bay of Matanzas, Soriano was one of the most acclaimed abstractionists of concrete art in Cuba (introduced in Havana in 1949<\/a>) and Latin America and was a part of the group Diez Pintores Concretos<\/em> (Ten Concrete Painters), its members known for painting geometric, hard-edged, abstractions between 1959 and 1961, as well as bringing the geometric abstraction movement of Europe and the Americas to Cuba. However, during the Cuban Revolution led by Fidel Castro, many abstract artists left the country, as non-representational, non-ideological art became suspect.<\/p>\n Originally curated by Elizabeth Thompson Goizueta for the McMullen Museum of Art Boston College for its January 2017 exhibition of Soriano\u2019s work in collaboration with the Rafael Soriano Foundation<\/a>, the retrospective Rafael Soriano: The Artist as Mystic<\/em> at LBMA shows works from his early, more geometric abstractions painted in Cuba to his later, more biomorphic shapes created in Florida following his exile.<\/p>\n La noche (The Night), 1970<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cAs the Revolution redefined its ideology and embraced communism in the early 1960s, the artistic precepts dictated by the regime no longer permitted unfettered artistic production. Some artists stayed, choosing to accept the revolutionary transformations imposed upon their production. Many, such as Soriano, chose to leave in search of artistic freedom,\u201d wrote Goizueta in her essay The Heart That Lights from Inside: Rafael Soriano\u2019s Struggle for His Artistic Vision.<\/p>\n Taking the stairs to see his later works, created after he left his native home, the paintings hanging on the walls of the museum\u2019s second-floor gallery seem to emit an ethereal light all on their own. The glowing marine, as well as earthy, colors of Soriano\u2019s more biomorphic paintings are enchanting, yet certainly depict a struggle as some of the shapes that appear are portrait-like and almost transparent, as if whatever might be trapped inside has yet to fully emerge, or make itself clear to the artist himself.<\/p>\n For example, the 1996 painting Angustia del Olvido<\/em> (The Anguish of Oblivion) was described by Goizueta as \u201cthe howl you see forming almost like an Edvard Munch scream\u201d and seems to express a more sinister facet of the human condition, one of turmoil or questions left unanswered and perhaps reflects a relentless pondering of the meaning of one’s existence.<\/p>\n Angustia del olvido (The Anguish of Oblivion), 1996.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cWhen he left and when he had this traumatic experience that he talked about, which was exile from Cuba, he felt as though the geometric abstraction with the flat angular forms was no longer sufficient to express the emotions that were going on inside of him and so then he turned back to the interpretation of biomorphic, organic [forms] that had first nurtured his vision,\u201d Goizueta explained.<\/p>\n Before being ostracized from Cuba, Soriano graduated from Havana\u2019s Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes San Alejandro in 1943 as Professor of Painting, Drawing and Sculpture, and returned to Matanzas where he taught for 20 years. He was also one of the founders, and later director, of Escuela de Bellas Artes de Matanzas, during his participation with Los Diez Pintores Concretos.<\/p>\n The 40s and 50s were a time when two competing interpretations of abstraction existed, according to Goizueta. One view was developed by a group called Los Once<\/em> (The 11), which focused on the organic, biomorphic interpretation of the genre, and which a sculptor by the name of Agust\u00edn C\u00e1rdenas, \u201cprobably the most important sculptor of that generation,\u201d was an active member. A friend and influencer of Soriano, several of C\u00e1rdenas sculptures are also on view at the LBMA, juxtaposed against Soriano\u2019s hard-edged works on the first floor.<\/p>\n El centinela (The Centinel), 1978<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cWhat I like to say about Soriano is that Soriano was a universal painter,\u201d Goizueta said. \u201cHe wasn\u2019t just painting Cuba of the 50s or Miami of the 70s, he was really going within himself for inspiration based on many years of education and formation, but his inspiration was his own unique vision. He would let his vision be his compass in terms of where he wanted to go.\u201d<\/p>\n Soriano\u2019s daughter, Hortensia, was only two years old when Soriano, and wife Milagros, moved to Miami in 1962, hoping that they\u2019d be able to return home after the revolution. When Soriano realized they were going to have to build a life in America, that returning home was not an option, \u201chis work changed dramatically,\u201d said Ron Nelson, LBMA\u2019s executive director. After leaving his life as an established artist and professor in Cuba behind, Soriano did not paint for two years.<\/p>\n \u201cAt first it was very difficult for him to paint at all,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cThen as he was working his way into this new life, he had to make a living, but he also had to paint because it\u2019s who he was. So the work transitioned into this surrealism, but then it started [taking on] this mystic and ephemeral feeling. They\u2019re darker, they\u2019re certainly not the bright colors that he used, but his manipulation of the paint and the color was truly amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n Mundo astral (Astral World), 1980<\/em><\/p>\n Forced to begin a new life, find a new profession (he found work as a graphic designer and continued teaching) and form a new identity, Soriano struggled to express himself through art. Hortensia, who was only two when she and her parents emigrated from Cuba to settle in Miami, recalled this period of her father adjusting to their family\u2019s new circumstances.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople may call it depression, I just think it was a period where he had to reset his mind,\u201d she said. \u201cHe was traumatized from being exiled and those two years he took as a time to reset. And he actually started painting in 1965, I would say, after he had an experience, as he called it \u2014 or it was a dream \u2014 he told my mom, \u2018We are settling here in the United States, this is where we\u2019re going to put our roots, and after that experience is when he started painting again.\u201d<\/p>\n As an only child, Hortensia was very close with her parents. After moving out at 20 to go to college and become a chiropractic physician, she maintained her practice in Miami and would visit Rafael and Milagros often. Milagros was her father\u2019s greatest fan and supporter, and would mount his canvases and build the frames; the two even came up with titles for his paintings together.<\/p>\n Frente al infinito (Facing the Infinite), 1992<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI remember as a child I would know when a painting was finished \u2014I never asked him, \u2018Is it finished?\u2019\u2014No, when it was finished he would bring me and my mother to the Florida room, the studio where he painted. He would say, \u2018Okay what do you think, what do you see, what do you feel?\u2019 and we would talk about it,\u201d Hortensia said. \u201cAnd so then they would proceed to name the paintings, like a child they would give every painting a name. These were like my little siblings, I grew up an only child, but I had many, many siblings in these paintings.\u201d<\/p>\n While Soriano\u2019s work is well known throughout Latin America, in Miami, New York, Boston and elsewhere internationally, there is a special significance to his work being shown at the LBMA, the only West Coast location to exhibit this retrospective. Having grown up on the Bay of Matanzas, Soriano had a special affinity for water. The bay, \u201cwhich in his own words changed color seven times a day,\u201d heavily influenced his works, Goizueta said.<\/p>\n Soriano passed away two years ago in his Miami home, surrounded by those who knew him well, according to the Miami Herald<\/a>. He leaves behind a legacy of artistic introspection, his works an integral facet of both Cuban and American art history.\u00a0<\/p>\n Espejismos de agua (Water Mirages), 1990<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI do not pretend to transmit a message of reality: I am moved by the longing to travel through my paintings in a dimension of spirit where the intimate and the cosmic converge,\u201d Soriano once said<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI think as you look out of the Long Beach Museum of Art and glimpse the sea and then glimpse his paintings juxtaposed next to it, you understand Soriano and his colors and his inspiration,\u201d Goizueta said.<\/p>\n![\"La](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/La_noche_The_Night_1970.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Angustia](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Angustia_del_olvido_The_Anguish_of_Oblivion_1996.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"El](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/El_centinela_The_Centinel_1978.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Mundo](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Mundo_astral_Astral_World_1980.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Frente](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Frente_al_infinito_Facing_the_Infinite_1992.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Espejismos](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Espejismos_de_agua_Water_Mirages_1990.jpg\")
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