Carlos Luna

Donated by the Artist, Carlos Luna Studios.

Carlos Luna is one of the foremost contemporary Cuban American artists, part of a generation of of Latin Americans who embrace their strong heritage and traditions while reinventing themselves along the way. Luna tells stories and narrates fables through detailed and richly painted canvases, mixed media works on paper, lavish tapestries, ceramics, mosaics, sculptures, and installations. He creates a symbolic visual language to differentiate his art as personal and recognizable.

Luna was born in Cuba in Pinar Del Rio province in 1969. He studied painting in San Alejandro Fine Art Academy and later finished his studies at the National School or Art. His work evidences a long-standing interest in the vernacular culture and oral literature associated with proverbs, sayings, and riddles, incorporating dense pencil scribbles into the painting's surface as an extension of the temporality of text into the imaginary.

In 2002, Luna moved to USA, a personal and professional transition signaled by an important transformation in his work, which was increasingly marked by his love of vernacular poetry, a fascination for popular mythology and an engagement with silent movies, cultural heritage, personal identity, and Cuban landscapes.