Today we’d like to introduce you to Octavio Cuellar.
Octavio, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I studied Sculpture at the National Academy of Fine Arts “San Alejandro,” in Havana and I graduated in 1992. They were difficult social times in Cuba and Cuban art had gone from visual confrontation to a much more subliminal language of an ironic, sarcastic and ambiguous character to be able to express itself without being censored.
I remember that while I was studying sculpture – the end of the 80s, I did indebted works in expression to the ready-made, pop art and surrealism. At that time, I was a rebellious and dissatisfied young man and these artistic expressions allowed me a critical discourse and social resistance, which, encouraged by the artistic avant-garde of the 80s, it managed to invigorate Cuban society.
During this period as a student, I was exercising in other trades such as ceramics, wood carving, classical sculpture, jewelry, blacksmithing, with the purpose of developing my ability to carry out, conceptually moving away from my previous stage. In a heated discussion with my sculpture teacher Pedro M. González Pulido about what I should do and what I wanted to do, my new figuration emerged.
I started studying the classics, the decorative arts, and the fine arts. It was then that I became interested in jewelry, not as a career, but as a fundamental principle of formal sculpture. At this point, the craft and exquisite accomplishment became a goal for me. Now I asked myself, how do you feel? The political climate and the situations that hurt or suited the individual no longer mattered, but only his state of mind wanted to capture the spiritual essence and the energetic and emotional center of man. I must add that my maternal grandfather was a great inspiration for my work. He was an excellent Cuban jeweler known as Campito (the diminutive of his last name Campos), and I owe him my name. Why am I doing this parenthesis? Because observing the pieces worked by my grandfather, I turned my sculptures into macro-jewelry.
From here, my works began to have an expressionist halo in the way of posing the sensory movement and the elongation of the figures, impressionists in the embossing to obtain textures, lights and shadows and realistic due to its full-scale reproduction of accessories and details. Now the empty spaces were part of the work and its concept. The sculpted spaces begin to have a visual apprehension: the haunting gaze of the viewer.
At this point, I begin to speak of the social character from the suggestion of his/her soul and not from the consequences of his/her body, giving birth to a new figuration in my work that I call the Fugitive Spirit. One of my first participations as a sculptor was the same year 1992 with a small-format sculpture entitled Hallazgo made of wood, marble, brass and silver. It was a collective exhibition at the La Acacia gallery with artists with solid careers such as Manuel Mendive, Pedro Pablo Oliva, Nelson Dominguez, Zaida del Rio, Arturo Montoto, Roberto Fabelo and Flora Fong.
In 1994 I exhibited the first sculpture on a human scale called Sacrifice, in collateral of the V Havana Biennial. Sacrifice was a work that convulsed in the Cuban and Miami political circles because it was associated with the death of Fidel Castro. However, the conceptual proposal of the work was based on the sociological analysis and the dissolution of the sense of social permanence of the human being, written by Zygmunt Bauman in his book “Liquid Modernity.” The sculpture represented a scaffold with a man (poor and in sandals), hanged by one foot – an image described The Hangman in a Tarot card – on a surface covered with aggressive wooden spikes. Sacrifice was the first work on a human scale, which marked new figuration in my career, a series of characters that I group under the name Fugitive Spirit.
After traveling and living in Europe and Mexico (1997-2008), the social context changes in my life and I feel the creativity need to express in my work to a higher level without losing its common thread; these thoughts moved me to a more metaphysical concept of the spirituality seen as a social community body; thus my Palimpsest series was born. This group of sculptures alludes to the banality of modern society induced through advertising and consumption, thus guiding the new behavior patterns and tastes of today’s man. This set judges and replaces elements of worship of a sacred nature with everyday pieces, which, located within a set of symbologies and codices of ancient cultures, highlight their ridiculous and frivolous character, shuddering at a reflection of our values and an observation of the cultural heritage of man.
In 1996 my works appeared in hotels in Varadero and the Spanish businessman Luis Callejon Blanco, one of the developers of the Costa del Sol in Spain falls in love with them and hires me for two years (1997-1999) to make sculptures in his hotels in Punta Banu in Marbella. An example is the Moras en la Fuente (Moorish women at the fountain) sculptural group. During my stay in Spain, I also made several small-format gold sculptures for Prince Faisal Abdullah of Syria.
In 1999 when I return to Cuba, Eusebio Leal, the City Historian, commissioned me several sculptures for the Hostal Los Frailes, the Basilica del Convento de San Francisco de Asis (concert center today) and the Tejadillo hotel, all in Old Havana. Example: the Monks. Within 2000-2008 I resided in Cuernavaca, Mexico. In Rincon Dorado (event center) I positioned around 30 human-scale sculptures with various themes such as music, ballet, photography, women, etc. From 2008 to the present, I live in Miami. Here I have participated in international art fairs, group exhibitions and private events.
In 2017-2019 the Miami Country Day School commissioned me through the project Latin American Art Pavilion four sculptures to represent the arts, disciplines that they teach to their students at the Center for the Arts. For this, I performed Contra Bass Musician (music), Cambré (ballet), Set-Up (photography) and Ka (theater). Today my sculptural work is part of private and public collections in the United States, Spain, Switzerland, Syria, Cuba, the United Kingdom, Ecuador, Mexico and Guatemala.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
No path is easy and even less the path of art. The great obstacle of art is its own market system, a market that is not regulated.
Hands on Metal – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Hands on Metal is a very young company, which opened in 2018. The company is dedicated to the creation of metal sculptures made by me for private or public use. It also provides restoration, repair, copying and creation services of sculptural monuments, ornamental pieces, liturgical objects, symbolic objects such as trophies and medals, decorative elements for the architecture of historical, religious, governmental, residential and corporate buildings.
My dream is to create a school-workshop in my business to rescue young people who do not want to continue in regular school and to be able to teach them a trade.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
I have achieved an artistic language of my own, a high level of execution and collectors who appreciate and value my art.
Pricing:
- Medium size artwork $6,000 to $10,000
- Human scale artwork $40,000 to $50,000 (the price may increase depending on its complexity).
Contact Info:
- Address: 2615 SW 34 Ct Miami, FL 33133
- Website: www.octaviocuellar.com
- Phone: 3056329703
- Email: escultor.8vio@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/octaviocuellar/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/octavio.cuellar.Art
- Twitter: @octaviocuellar
- Other: https://www.linkedin.com/in/octaviocuellar/
Image Credit:
Contra Bass Musician (music), Octavio with ballet students (Cambré sculpture unveiling), Set Up (photographer sculpture). Located at Miami County Day School, Center of the Arts, Miami Shores
Ballerina without breeches, The Violinist, The Saxophonist, located at Cuernavaca, Mexico
Palimpsest series: The last frontier (telephone), Pivot Point (Fan image)
Act Libitum (ballet slippers on blacksmith anvil) For the next invitation “Convite to Dance” in Key West, curated by Alaen Ledesma. Perennial traveler, private collection in Switzerland
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