Néstor Arenas (b. Holguín, Cuba, 1964). He graduated from the Higher Institute of Art (Havana, 1990).
Arenas have widely exhibited his work at solo exhibitions and group shows throughout the U.S., Cuba,
Spain and China. Recent exhibitions include, 12th Havana Biennial (2015), “Legopaintings” (Lyle O’Reitzel
Gallery, Miami, 2010), Arteaméricas Art Fair (Miami, 2009 and 2010), Shanghai Art Fair (China, 2010). His
work is part of several private and corporate collections such as, Forrest Capital (Miami), The Mosquera
Collection (Miami), Jorge Reynardus Collection (New York and Sarasota), Leigh University (Pennsylvania),
Universidad de Valencia (Spain), among others.
The work of Néstor Arenas immerses us in an imaginary where memory, impulses and desires merge.
What we have won and, also, everything we have lost. Losses and profits that return with the appearances
of things and affections that are close and, at the same time, spooky. Images that are close, but already
diffuse, distant landscapes and, at the same time, domestic that tremble, say Walter Benjamin as
“constellations between alienated things and exhaustive meanings.”
When the work of Arenas is seen in perspective, a warning must be made on the pronounced iconographic
trajectory. An iconography deeply tangled with the history he personally lived in Cuba, as much as the one
he had to live through outside of. His landscapes, neo-figurative and abstract at the same time, project
visions where the historical and the personal biography cohabitate. The same way in which he presents
the capitalist world. “As I mentioned previously the work of Arenas submerges us in an imagination where
memories are smelted, our drives and our desires. That which we have obtained, also, everything that we
have lost. Losses and gains that return to us with the appearance of things and personal belongings and
at the same time phantasmagorical.