Born in Cienfuegos in 1966, Maribel Pérez Velázquez has lived in Havana for three decades, the city where she graduated as a hydraulic engineer. She trained as a photographer at various institutions, such as the José Martí International Institute of Journalism, the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba, the Cabrales del Valle Academy and the Witness Visual Storytellers program.
She has two solo exhibitions to her name: Parallel Confluences (Provincial Center of Plastic Arts and Design of Havana, 2022) and Point of View (La Pared Negra, Fábrica de Arte Cubano, 2024); she has also participated in several group exhibitions.
Her work has been recognized with several awards and mentions. These include: First Prize in the 6th Lente Artístico competition (2020); Best Cuban Author in the FIAF International Photographic Art Competition (2023); and the Individual Photography Award in the 11th Jóvenes del Lente “Infancias cubanas” Photography Competition (2023).
Maribel Pérez Vázquez shows us a segment of her work:
My work focuses on artistic architectural photography, although I also explore documentary photography and abstractionism. In this genre, I seek to distance myself from conventional representations of imposing structures.
I try to capture essential details, revealing new ways of looking at architecture, nature and everyday life, through compositions in which light, contrast and visual synthesis are central.
By inverting the images, a fantastic perspective is generated that invites the viewer to reconsider the familiar and discover shapes and textures that often go unnoticed.
I delve into architecture like someone exploring a soul, but I also travel through faces, streets and symbols, always in search of a language of my own.
I take photographs to find the invisible; to show that beauty often resides in the details and the traces of time.
From 2018 to the present
I discovered photography in 1998, when, with an analog camera, I took pictures of my young children, with no technical knowledge of the medium. I carefully framed and positioned them so that the final result was perfect. From then on, my gaze began to instinctively focus on what sparked my interest, discarding everything else and mentally composing the desired image.
In 2018, my son — then a student at the Higher Institute of Industrial Design — needed to deepen his knowledge of photography, which at the time was an elective subject in his degree. His enthusiasm rubbed off on me, and he and his girlfriend decided to enroll at the Cabrales del Valle Academy, under the guidance of renowned professors Ramón Cabrales and Rufino del Valle. I studied there for seven years, from Photography Technique and Camera Operation to Universal Art History, Curatorship and Museography.
I come from a family closely linked to the arts. There are musicians, painters and designers. My older sister, Ileana Pérez Velázquez, holds a PhD in Acoustic and Electronic Music, with a specialization in musical composition and a master’s degree in Electroacoustic Music. She is an internationally recognized figure and a professor at Williams College in Massachusetts. I have also been influenced by the visual arts through a nephew who is a painter, as well as through my son and his wife, both graphic designers.
Photography saved my life. Along with God, it has become my refuge and strength. It is the space I turn to when nostalgia and longing invade me. I have two children and a grandson who are my greatest pride. My eldest son holds a PhD in Chemistry from Leuven, Belgium, and my youngest holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Marketing and Visual Communication Design from Malaga, Spain.
Predilections, influences
In my photography, I play with composition, light and shadow to, as I mentioned above, reveal the architectural wonders that are still conserved and that, amidst the hustle and bustle of everyday life, often go unnoticed.
Before shooting, I study the locations, the buildings and every architectural detail to return at the precise moment and capture the image. Based on a real scene, I sometimes invert the image in search of a more fantastical and minimalist approach, aiming to offer a different vision. I work meticulously on each piece, perfecting it until I am completely satisfied.
Over eight years of practicing this art, I have explored various photographic genres, such as architecture in details, creative artistic portraiture, documentary, street and abstract photography, but it is in architectural details where I find my greatest passion.
I have a special attraction to elements such as columns, cornices, pillars, arches and moldings, as well as staircases and skylights.
Among the photographers whose works have influenced my vision are Henri Cartier-Bresson, Fan Ho, Sebastião Salgado and Eugene Smith. Within the Cuban landscape, I deeply admire the work of Raúl Cañibano, Armando Zambrana and Rufino del Valle.
Architecture in Detail
This series was conceived in black and white. The images were captured with natural light. Contrast, synthesis and unadorned lighting facilitate somewhat radical compositions that highlight essential details of the buildings, inviting viewers to position themselves from a different perspective than usual.
By inverting the images, a fantastic perspective is generated. Those who stop to look at these works must reconsider what is familiar and discover shapes and textures that until then seemed unfamiliar, despite being present in their everyday environments.
Genesis
Based on the symbol of the egg — the starting point of existence — I construct narratives where time seems suspended between gestation and rebirth. The shell that envelops and protects also opens as a promise. From the hidden, life emerges; from rupture, creation springs forth.
The images explore this tension between fragility and strength, between emptiness and plenitude. I use synthetic compositions, natural light and black and white as elements of timelessness.
Sometimes, the life that emerges is not animal, but vegetal: an unexpected flower that sprouts from the broken, reminding us that the cycles of existence do not obey fixed forms, but rather an essential impulse of transformation.
Genesis invites viewers to contemplate the moment when everything begins, and to recognize in that vulnerability a profound form of beauty.
Between Veils and Thorns
Entre velos y espinas (Between Veils and Thorns) explores the complex experiences of those who, for various reasons, are driven to hide their sexual orientation.
Through veils that cover the gaze and floral elements that evoke fragility, desire and beauty, a metaphor is constructed about that which, although hidden, insists on manifesting itself.
The flower, a symbol of that which germinates despite repression, becomes an extension of the body and an act of silent resistance.
This series is an essay on acceptance, on identity that struggles to be recognized, on tenderness as a form of existence and on the delicacy that can contain an unstoppable force.
Anatomy of Space
Anatomía del espacio (Anatomy of Space) deals with the human imprint inscribed in architecture. It reveals how the body and space dialogue in a silent and persistent exchange.
Through portraits that merge with architectural fragments, the series proposes a reading in which geometry becomes skin and structure an extension of the being.
The use of black and white intensifies the tension between form and presence and strips the image of distractions to highlight the essential: the poetics of habitation and the permanence of the human in built space.
Each photograph functions as an intimate cartography where architecture ceases to be a mere stage setting and becomes the protagonist of the body, and the body, in turn, becomes a vital part of the anatomy of the space.
