(EFE).- The Cuban painter Flora Fong, with decades intermingling the Caribbean and China in her works, as in her own blood, advocates overcoming the difficulties of the serious crisis that her country is going through and asks artists to “preserve” the “high value and much prestige” of culture.
In an interview with EFE, this 73-year-old Cuban National Prize for Plastic Arts, with exhibitions in twenty countries, acknowledges that the deficiencies are affecting her work, something that leads her to reflection on the one hand and, on the other , to sharpen the ingenuity to overcome them.
Fong describes the current situation as “very tough” and indicates that it reminds him of another of the worst moments in the recent history of the Island, the so-called Special Period after the fall of the socialist camp in Eastern Europe: “I have felt it difficult as to the lack of suitable materials for the job”, he acknowledges.
Thus, he has opted for “resting a bit, giving a moment to analyze what one has done, looking back to know what I am missing, and what I can continue doing, such as drawing, sketching and organizing myself”.
He ensures that his projects are progressing “calmly”, while waiting for a “more appropriate” moment in which he has “more facilities, to be able to do it well”.
“Everyone has to help each other and each nation – in this case us – begin to think about what we can do for ourselves”
In the meantime, he suggests “a lot of reflection and serenity” because “we are like turning the corner.” “The Earth itself is giving signs such as global warming that is real and the lack of water,” she points out.
“Everyone has to help each other and each nation – in this case us – begin to reason about what we can do for ourselves. We are doing it – above all science does it – and art, because the national culture in all their expression has a high value and a lot of prestige, and we have to maintain and preserve that,” he says.
At this time, he considers the advice he gave to his Plastic Arts students in 1992 totally valid: “Seize the moment and get the best out of yourself. It’s just one era, others will come later. Don’t feel weak, you have to continue. And if do not have this material, look for other alternatives”.
Influenced by abstract art, surrealism and expressionism, Fong’s extensive oeuvre combines, in his characteristic and authentic hallmark, the light and warm colors of the tropics with elements of ancient Chinese culture.
Cuban nature is omnipresent in his work, from a tobacco leaf to the hurricanes that hit the island where he was born, passing through fish, roosters and banana groves. But above all the omnipresent light of the Tropics, its strength and its reflections, which puts “an emphasis on the vegetation, on the star that dominates the sky.”
Equal importance is given to the “elements, concepts and aesthetic proposals” of Chinese culture, something that is “inside, in the blood.” She was born in Camagüey (central Cuba), to a Cuban mother and a Chinese father.
Equal importance is given to the “elements, concepts and aesthetic proposals” of Chinese culture, something that is “inside, in the blood”
The incorporation of oriental elements into his work began little by little. Fong, a surname that he translates as “autumn cloud”, relates it to the moment, at the age of 35, that he began to study the Chinese language in a school in Havana.
Until then, she explains, she was focused on “the palms, the large tobacco leaves, our Sun, the sunflowers and the sea.” Little by little she began to internalize Chinese calligraphy and began to include characters in his works, she “appropriated a language to be able to say things through the work and incorporate elements into Cuban painting.”
Strokes derived from Chinese characters inspired the series tropical fish tanks and works like It is necessary to cross the great seas or the one that reflects the marriage of a woman in the Asian nation.
Fong currently has an exhibition touring different cities in China. He has exhibited in museums and galleries in countries such as the United States, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Japan, South Korea, India, Mexico, and Argentina, among others.
Despite the material difficulties, the artist claims to remain fully active. Among the pending notes, she cites the design of jewelry and furniture, and a performance inspired by the silk route that will include a fashion show.
He is also preparing a “didactic” and “chronological” exhibition of his work for February 2024 at the National Museum of Fine Arts of Cuba. His idea is to carry out “a different visual journey that has nature and my Chinese ancestors as its common thread.”
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