Gabriel Sánchez Toledo (Cabaiguán 1979) is a different landscape painter. He proposes a universal piece, hard to contextualize in time and space. He claims that identity goes beyond hills and royal palms. In our visual contemporariness we are used to the paths through the colorful tropics, the intensity of light and the green in our fields. Gabriel’s proposal moves away from folklore, commercial topics and stereotypesthat repeatedly appear in the postcards tourists take home as souvenirs.
A portion of his latest works will be in exhibition at the Galiano Gallery till the end of August. Tierra de nadie (Nobody’s land) is the title of six medium and large canvases and nine sketches that act as prelude for the main pieces. This artist works with sketches as if miniature canvases, which he later take into a larger piece and he finds it interesting to be able to share this process with spectators, as he stated for OnCuba.
Despite his youth he is known as one of Cuba’s most singular landscape painters. He has participated in about 30 collective exhibits in and out of Cuba and his works is part of institutional and private collections. He is the son of renowned artist Ania Toledo, which allowed him to get into the world of arts since he was little.
“The main plot of the series is based on a universal or cosmogonist perspective and tries to avoid geographic localisms by highlighting the ambiguity of natural referents and the multiple visual sensations these may lead to. The underlying ideas are based in the paradox of meaning aroused from the mixture of elements of a subtle anachronism with out of context landscapes. The visual result of that mixture are almost surrealistic creations which in an attempt to hide them lead the spectators to enter a world full of metaphors and allegories”, explained the artists when asked about the particularities of the exhibit.
With a peculiar vision of landscapes, the artist synthesizes elements to tackles the issues of individual loneliness and desolation, among other recurrent topics. In dark atmospheres, with certain chromatic neutrality, he creates certain effects by means of juxtapositions and conjunctions to provoke spectators and make them reflect on the mysterious environments he creates and recreates.
Gabriel clutches to the canvas he alters with different materials mostly in big formats in order to express his messages which deal with vague and faded characters. His work is characterized by his concern for nature and human figure along with his mastery of dripping and degradations between shadows and lights.
