These words create images in our minds, evoking thoughts, emotions, and memories. Cuban artists, however, evolve these words further, bringing them to life by transforming them into two- and three-dimensional reflections of our inner selves — our human condition.

In Eugene and throughout the Northwest, museums scattered around cities and towns feature art from various backgrounds: Chinese, Native American, medieval, abstract, Impressionism, Cubism. Yet Cuban art lingers in the background, not yet on center stage. The movement is beginning to make waves in the region, however, depicting the feelings and memories of our human condition. Cuban artists utilize a wide array of mediums; sometimes they lack expensive high-end materials, but they defy this supposed drawback by creating art with whatever is at hand: dyes, clay, pieces of wood, even human hair.

“The paintings contain layer upon layer of meanings, and what you see is not necessarily what you get,” says Steven Oshatz, a local Eugene artist.  “Cuba represents a resistance against imperialism.”

In his east Eugene studio, Oshatz has a collection of several photos of Cuban life displayed about the room. Cafê interiors, bars, and scenes of everyday Cuban life decorate the walls. The faces of Havana look back at me from within the frames. A girl, grinning confidently, almost defiantly, gazes into the camera. She seems to be staring directly at me, eyes gleaming with youthful intensity and vigor, as if to shout, “This is who I am, and I won’t change for anyone!”

Cuban art can be found in several Seattle area museums, and elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest, including the Portland Art Museum and Photographic Center Northwest. Juan Alonso, a Cuban-born artist, has his own studio on 1^st Avenue in Seattle. His art has been shown in several Washington galleries, including the CIRCA gallery and the Seattle Art Museum (SAM).

“I never decided to ‘become’ an artist,” says Alonso, who left Cuba one month before his 10^th birthday. “I worked at a frame shop when I moved to Seattle, and the owner said I could put some of my framed drawings and paintings on the walls. Folks would see them and start to buy them, and then some galleries started to pay attention.”

One of his more recent works, “Dive,” is a painting of a large reddish-orange vase with forest-green vines unraveling from the base. The scene is malleable in ideology; the ‘vase’ could be a fish, with triangular white teeth and green tentacles. Splashes of white flowers, or perhaps bubbles, sprout from the open mouth of the fish. In the caption under the painting, Alonso describes his childhood memory of mimicking his father’s ability to float atop the Caribbean Sea. With “Dive,” Alonso invites us to plunge into his world, interpreting his message along with our own thoughts.

“I try to express these themes as I would understand them, but it is perfectly fine with me if not everyone does,” Alonso says. “We all take away something different from looking at a work of art. With visual art, the audience is invited to imagine their own dialogue.”

Like Alonso, other Cuban artists are finding their niche in Seattle. Laura Castellanos and Juan Carlos Castellanos, both of Cuban heritage, display their art in their gallery, Studio Castellanos. Juan Carlos is a Cuban-born artist living in the Northwest, and Laura was born in the U.S. shortly after her parents moved from Cuba.

“Having been born in the USA, I consider myself a hybrid,” Laura says. “I have never been to Cuba but have lived in a Cuban "space" with extended family up until 1991, when I moved to Seattle.”

Laura made her way into Seattle’s art community by creating a poster for the Bumbershoot music festival and has painted ever since. She specializes in urban visionary art, using vibrant, contrasting colors and bold lines in her paintings.

“I got interested in art through my Cuban grandfather Carlos Menendez. He was a musician, visual artist, and progressive thinker,” Laura says.  “At the age of 5, he began giving me music lessons and recognized an expressive and sensitive ‘touch’ in my playing.”

Almost 25 years ago, Laura encountered a pivotal turning point in her work while attending a Misa Blanca ceremony, a Santeria ritual used to communicate with the dead. During the ritual, she says she entered a state of altered consciousness, creating “a state of otherness” she could now use.

“Utilizing cast off materials such as Kraft paper and latex paint given to me by friends, I placed torn sheets on the floor and allowed the accidental properties of the liquid paint to guide me into these first images,” Laura says.

“For the past 25 years, I have adopted an ongoing theme of openness and variability in my work,” she adds. “I am drawn to the work of intuitive artists whose idiosyncrasies are expressed with both rawness and sensitivity.”