Statement
My thesis was the result of a research process on the Landscape genre in the 18th century, mainly in the Hudson River School and English romanticism. I was interested in its influence on the representation of gender in Cuban painting. Artists such as Thomas Cole, Albert Briestad, Frederick Edwin Church, Thomas Moran, John Constable and Turner were the main ones studied.
I was always interested in the artistic production that is included in what we know as Romanticism, after a review of the representation of mountains I began to study the figuration of the great masters of that period, Delacroix, Gericault, Goya, etc.
Understanding the history of painting as consecutive cycles of Pragmatism-Idealism, Romanticism would be the last great Idealist cycle, succeeded by a pragmatic period that goes from Realism to Impressionism, which in turn is succeeded by another idealist period that clearly extends from Post-Impressionism to Contemporary painting, with its exceptions.
After my final trip to Spain, I began to study the Spanish School and especially the close link between Spanish popular traditions and Cuban history and identity.
Richard Somonte Llerena (Havana, 1991). He graduated as a painter from the San Alejandro Academy in 2010. In the same city he held several personal exhibitions such as “Somonte” (2017) and “Arquitectura de Dios” (2018) at the Carmen Montilla Gallery in Havana. As well as several group groups, including Garaje 33:08 (Alternative Space) in 2016, “PIPOL”, in the Artis gallery (2017), “The place in how good it is", in Habana Gallery (2019). In the year In 2019 he moved permanently to Spain (Madrid) where presented his work for the first time at the My name's Lolita Art Gallery (“Line and Mountain”), in February 2021. In October 2022 he founded, with Beatriz Bullón, the “ Somonte painting studio”, Madrid, where it currently carries out its activity. In this space, 3 exhibitions have been inaugurated to date: "Two of Swords", with Maikel Sotomayor (May, 2023), "Normalmente", with Julio Llopiz- Casal (December, 2023) and “Satisfyer animal” with Vahid Sharifian (March, 2024), in addition to participating in AQUI Contemporary Art Platform (September, 2023).
