On the Cover

An internationally known, multidisciplinary artist and art educator, Leandro Soto (b. 1956) was one of the creators of the so-called New Cuban Art of the 1980s. A leading figure in the influential Volumen Uno exhibit (1981), he was also one of the first artists of his generation to invoke Afro-Cuban cultural and religious elements in his work. Soto has lived and worked in Cuba, Mexico, the United States, India, and Barbados, among other places, and his work borrows from each of these cultures, mixing European and non-European visual and ritual elements. His works are in art collections all over the world, including the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havana, the Museum of Art (MoA) Fort Lauderdale, the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami (MOCA), the New Delhi Global Arts Village Collection, and many others. As curator, Soto has coordinated the exhibition project C.A.F.E. (Cuban American Foremost Exhibit), devoted to highlight the art of the Cuban diaspora. Soto lives and works currently in Barbados.

In a 2007 interview with Isabel Alvarez Borland in the Afro-Hispanic Review (26, no. 1: 176), Soto explains that the cover piece, Y la nave va, is “part of a large body of work named: Soledad de las Islas (2000). This series started as my poetic and artistic response to my … trip to Cuba in 1999, after nine years in exile. In these paintings, I use the image of a rafter—a balsero—as a metaphor for the Cuban diaspora. The theme of the ocean has also some mythological components for me. For example, it represents Yemaya, goddess of the ocean, in her various manifestations in the Yoruba tradition. Blue is her favorite color.”

For additional information on the artist visit www.leandrosoto.com.