This in one of the few occasions in which I can unequivocally say that I’m in front of an excellent painter. And there is no epithet that will fit Eleomar Puente’s magnificent creations.
There is a constant political reference in his works that is not only contained to his country of origin, Cuba, since we can also adjust the addressed works to our own space in time just as much as to those in Latin America, achieving the same equivalent effects in similar situations, people and spaces.
In each of Eleomar’s works there is a metaphor of authority, of political power, of the media and that of sex. The constant idea of power adapted in a category leaning in his works like a cross… constantly translating and transforming itself into a power of seduction that informs, presses and suppresses.
The mass media are one of the themes of this production. The information is distorted and alienated masquerade and muzzle of his characters. The paper appears as a key to decrypt the repression and the limits of freedom of expression of the individual. The end justifies the means.
In this series of works a provoked ambiguity exists which aims to link traditional positive concepts (such as maternity) with grotesque images that seems up to a point, revolting.
It proposes superimposed texts, showing on one side the sublimity and categories of it and on the other, the rawness of the same. This expressed contradiction is evidence of some sort of mockery by placing his beasts in congenial, idyllic atmospheres, surrounded by tall and luscious vegetation cities, which impose themselves as shelters for the amatory tussles and the mere survival of these creatures, placed on such authentic Dutch floor patterns that Vermeer himself would have so admired… this just for the beast to suckle its newborns.
Oceans full of elements connect on Eleomar’s works and the abundance of these same elements confuses and bewilders… Alongside of it, is also the fantastical light that bathes these characters, which in turn produce a squalid and paradoxically pleasant atmosphere. How the crudeness of the message is taken sublime and pleasant? Logical rationality is evident in the production of this artist, who reprocessed their reality and plasma processes by measuring all the consequences that this speech may have on the viewer. The amazement and disgust are not foreign, as well as an occasional shock Stendhal never hurts.
Eleomar Puente manipulates us, makes us believe in myths, makes distrust everything and everyone, and laughs with the back wheel.
