Reynier Llanes\u2019 curiosity cannot be contained. He traces its origins to his childhood in Cuba.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy grandfather used to get all the grandkids at the table on Sundays, and after the meal, he would read us from Aesop\u2019s Fables,\u201d Llanes said. \u201cThen we had to come up with the message of the story.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat experience taught him the value of using metaphors and allegories to paint visual stories.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt it was a powerful tool for me to create ideas,\u201d Llanes observed. \u201cIt’s a magic realism that my work can deliver to the audience.\u201d<\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
Paintings like ‘The Apple Tree’ are part of Reynier Llanes’ ‘Fables’ series and on view through Dec. 15 at BIG ARTS on Sanibel Island. <\/p>\n
His flight from Cuba on a boat with 21 other emigrants also influences much of Llanes\u2019 work.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy art is about freedom,\u201d Llanes noted. \u201cI’m very intrigued about our past and our future and how I am responsible to my own life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Llanes also credits the pandemic with shaping the trajectory of his \u201cPoets\u201d and \u201cBeekeepers\u201d series of paintings. The latter probes the isolation engendered by masks and face coverings. It\u2019s a topic Llanes feels keenly.<\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
‘Bettas’ is part of Reynier Llanes’ ‘Poets’ series on view now through Dec. 15 at BIG ARTS on Sanibel Island. <\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes people say that what is the most difficult thing to be an artist? Are you going to be kind of struggling and all that kind of stuff? I think the essential struggle is to be in the studio by yourself, dialoguing with this vision that comes to your mind. It can be sometimes very psychological.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to BIG ARTS Gallery Director Wilson McCray, these divergent influences combine to form thought-provoking narratives.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe show is almost completely unexpected \u2014 narratives filled with love and hope,\u201d McCray said. \u201cEveryone that comes into the gallery is actually hit kind of immediately with not just the paint and the light, but something physical.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCurious\u201d is on view at BIG ARTS on Sanibel Island through Dec. 15.<\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
Artist Reynier Llanes<\/p>\n
MORE INFORMATION:<\/p>\n
Llanes joked that he knew he was destined for a career as a visual artist while he was still in his mother\u2019s womb.<\/p>\n
His earliest memories are drawing on a piece of paper in his backyard. But what sealed his fate was being taken by his parents to an art show.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mom and my dad took me to art events, and I felt like I wanted to be a creator.\u201d<\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
‘Me Time,’ oil on canvas, by Reynier Llanes <\/p>\n
Born in Pinar del Rio, Cuba, in 1985, Llanes attended the city\u2019s school of art (Instructores de Arte) for four years and completed his studies in 2004.<\/p>\n
\u201cOut of the blue, this school from the government programs opened and it was for the arts,\u201d Llanes recounted. \u201cThere was music, dance, theater, and visual arts. One of my friends told me, hey, they’re going to do this here in this province, Pinar del Rio, and so I was able to go into this school for four years. It was more like a vocation to become an art teacher, and I did teach for around two years and painting at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Llanes felt that his prospects were bleak in Cuba at that time, not to mention that art supplies were scarce. So, he made the decision in 2005 to pursue the opportunities afforded to artists in the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn’t tell anyone at first,\u201d Llanes recalled. \u201cI didn’t want to get them involved in the process.\u201d <\/p>\n
He especially didn\u2019t want to expose his family to blowback from the authorities. Plus, it wasn\u2019t likely they\u2019d support his decision given the dangers involved in navigating the treacherous Cuban Straits.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was young,\u201d Llanes said, laughing. \u201cI didn’t know what I was going to encounter in that journey crossing the ocean, and if you ask me what’s my biggest memory, it was the moment that it started raining. It was dark everywhere. The sky was dark. The ocean was dark. I saw my entire life passing through in front of me in less than 10 seconds. So, I say, if there\u2019s a God, please consider our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
They landed in the Tortugas.<\/p>\n
\u201c[The Coast Guard] rescued us from there, took us to Key West and from Key West, we were moved to Miami.\u201d<\/p>\n
He remained there for only a few days before moving in with some friends of his parents who lived in Lehigh Acres.<\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
‘Letters in Bloom’ by Reynier Llanes<\/p>\n
\u201cSomething inside of me was telling me I needed to take this risk or opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
While he\u2019s never looked back, he imported a number of important lessons from his homeland into his paintings, not the least of which was his present penchant for using impasto in his compositions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was classically trained,\u201d Llanes explained. \u201cBack in Cuba, I didn’t have that much material, so I would [apply] just a little bit of paint. I carried that trauma here, even though we have the luxury to have these beautiful art stores that you go and you feel like a child in front of all these oils. We don’t have that back there. But I still had that mental block that, oh, you have to use just a little bit of oil.\u201d<\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
In ‘New Winds,’ Llanes used thick applications of impasto to suggest the feathers giving his subject flight, a metaphor for the freedom he felt after coming to the United States. <\/p>\n
Then the pandemic struck.<\/p>\n
\u201cGalleries, museums, everything that had to be related to art closed,\u201d Llanes continued. \u201cSo I was questioning what is the future going to be for us?\u201d<\/p>\n
At that moment, he began ladling pigment onto his canvases in big globs like there\u2019d be no tomorrow.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was more, I had this desire to use more oils, to use more texture as in a sculpture,\u201d Llanes noted.<\/p>\n
In fact, his use of impasto doesn\u2019t just give his canvases a sculptural appearance.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes I feel like paintings can be imprisoned,\u201d Llanes said. \u201cWhen I was a kid, my teacher would say you’ve got to color inside the lines. I was like, \u2018I can’t stay inside the lines.\u2019 I like to go outside the lines.\u201d<\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
Some of the works on display in the BIG ARTS main gallery in ‘Curious’<\/p>\n
And Llanes does just that. A quick scan around the BIG ARTS gallery reveals a number of paintings where large swarths of impasto extend beyond the four corners of Llanes\u2019 canvases.<\/p>\n
Llanes leaned against the wall and peered across the surfaces of one canvas from its edge.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt looks like a typography when I look at it from the side,\u201d he said as though surveying mountainous terrain rising from a plain or valley. \u201cIt\u2019s fun. It’s kind of like painting and sculpturing at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Most of the paintings on display at BIG ARTS are oil on canvas. But there are a couple of aberrations.<\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
‘I Do’ is one of Reynier Llanes’ coffee watercolors on view in ‘Curious’ at BIG ARTS. <\/p>\n
\u201cOne day I was doing a drawing for my final class,\u201d Llanes recounted. \u201cIt was a portrait of a friend of mine. I was drinking coffee and spilled the coffee on that drawing. I thought my teacher was going to be terrified by seeing that. To the contrary, I found that I could do watercolor paintings using coffee. So I started doing coffee paintings and, in fact, there are two paintings made with coffee here in the show.\u201d<\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
‘It’s For You, Sweetheart’ is one of Reynier Llanes’ coffee watercolor paintings on view at BIG ARTS.<\/p>\n
Those paintings are titled \u201cI Do\u201d and \u201cIt\u2019s For You, Sweetheart,\u201d and they reinforce Llanes’ conviction to utilize a variety of media in aid of the narratives his compositions convey.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I do watercolors, drawings and mixed media, but my longest relationship is with oils.\u201d
Moreover, oils equip him to do what he loves most, and that\u2019s working large-scale.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a lot of fun doing the large paintings,\u201d Llanes said. \u201cIt’s kind of like a performance. Most of the time I’m listening to music, and if you see my work from the past five years, it has evolved into different connotations, how I use my colors and the brush strokes. It’s very visceral. So I dance in front of the paintings doing large brush strokes, using a lot of pigment. Big canvases allow me to express myself in that way.\u201d<\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
‘The Spell,’ by Reynier Llanes<\/p>\n
In addition to utilizing an abundance of pigment and extending his compositions beyond the edges of his canvases, Llanes’ painting style has morphed from Realism into Impressionism.<\/p>\n
\u201cImpressionism allows me to leave more to viewers\u2019 imaginations,\u201d Llanes explained. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat has a lot to do with the title of the show. I provide a line or some color and a viewer\u2019s curiosity completes the picture. That better enables me to express concepts like power, flight, freedom and timelessness.\u201d<\/p>\n
It also gives viewers greater investment in his compositions since they have the latitude to decipher and interpret Llanes\u2019 subjects and motifs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want spectators to become the poets, to bring their own poetry to the work,\u201d Llanes added. <\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
‘Cosmic Birth,’ oil on canvas by Reynier Llanes<\/p>\n
In 2012 Oxford American recognized him as one of the \u201cNew Superstars of Southern Art.\u201d
His work is represented by Harmon Meek Gallery in Naples, featured in public collections such as the Denver Art Museum and presented at The Butler Institute of American Art and the Polk Musuem of Art, among others.<\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
Artist Reynier Llanes in the main gallery at BIG ARTS framed by two his ‘Curious,’ large-scale paintings<\/p>\n
Recent exhibitions include:<\/p>\n
\u201cSteeped in Folklore: Recent Paintings by Reynier Llanes,\u201d Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, Georgia\u201cPursuit of Grace,\u201d Rutgers University, Camden, New Jersey\u201cBrewing Expression,\u201d Harmon-Meek Gallery, Naples, Florida<\/p>\n
For more, visit reynierllanes.com.<\/p>\n
Support for WGCU\u2019s arts & culture reporting comes from the Estate of Myra Janco Daniels, the Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor Foundation, and Naomi Bloom in loving memory of her husband, Ron Wallace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reynier Llanes\u2019 curiosity cannot be contained. He traces its origins to his childhood in Cuba. \u201cMy grandfather used…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-54887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}