Andres Conde

Art is Not Obscene

2023

Andres Conde was uprooted from Havana as a child, and brought to New York via Madrid in 1979. The family eventually settled in Miami. The contrasts in art and architecture between Havana and Madrid, Madrid and New York, then New York and Miami had enormous visual and creative impact on the young man, and can be seen in his work. His first paintings on canvas were oriented toward pop, highlighting Conde's penchant for graphic and commercial art. The most notable series of which, "Pop Revolution : When the image outlives the ideology" was a political statement on the state of affairs in Cuba, "...the image...", referred to is the omnipresent image of Ernesto Che Guevara. Conde featured the Argentinian mercenary splashed with blood, covered with quotes by José Martí, (the father of Cuban independence) in graffiti, or in the case of the painting "Siete Años Para El Che" (Seven Years for Che), the well known image of Guevara was created with the handwritten names of the prisons and work camps were Conde's father was held for seven years. The shift from the angry political to the lush feminine divine so prevalent in Conde’s later works was precipitated by a meeting with Itzchak Tarkay at Conde's studio in Miami in 1997. Tarkay, well known painter of women and Hungarian born Holocaust survivor, asked Conde why he painted such images. Conde responded, “…because I’m angry.” Tarkay, nodded his head and smiled. “Paint something beautiful, paint your wife.” This conversation sparked a change in Conde’s approach to subject matter. “I persist in reimagining a past that never was or obsessively trying to capture the beauty of God’s most perfect creation, it is complete insanity.” — ANDRES CONDE With his series "SOCIAL", Conde is painting something beautiful and something political. The artist is in the process of creating 240 new covers for the iconic Cuban magazine which closed in 1938. SOCIAL magazine, was the "Vanity Fair" of Cuba. He has reopened the magazine, in his imagination, and is running it from 1939 through the date of the revolution in 1959, when he will symbolically close the doors of the magazine again. The artist has become best known for his paintings of women; his subjects often reflecting both strength and vulnerability at once. His fascination with women goes beyond the sensual; he holds women in higher esteem than men generally. In his series, “ Días de Un Futuro Pasado”, (Days of A Future Past), Conde often depicts celebrations locked somewhere in time between the 1930’s and the 1950’s. The viewers eye is drawn to the women in the scene as they are always the focus. The men exist, but are never quite as finely articulated. Conde lives and works in Natchez, Mississippi. His work can be found in collections across North and South America, France, Germany and Haiti.