ABEL QUINTERO
PAINTER | STORYTELLER | CREATOR
REMEMBER, YEARN, AND UNLEARN
My paintings begin long before the first brushstroke.
They emerge from a place where memory and imagination are no longer separate. I grew up in the Cuban countryside, in a world where the deep blue of the night seemed to exist alongside the warm glow of house lights. The scent of burning charcoal, the sound of a lute, stories told after sunset, improvised poetry, animals, trees, and people all belonged to the same living reality. I never sensed a boundary between them. Everything appeared to share the same breath.
Over time, I realized that what remained with me was not merely a childhood memory, but a way of seeing the world.
I do not seek to reconstruct the past. Memory has never been a faithful archive of events; it is a creative force that transforms, erases, combines, and invents. My paintings arise from that uncertain territory where memories no longer belong to a specific time and instead become symbols.
Nature occupies a central place in my work because it embodies a silent order that precedes human existence. Vegetation, architecture, animals, musical instruments, and the human figure coexist as if they were parts of the same living organism. I am drawn to the moment when ordinary objects cease to be merely objects and begin to carry meaning.
Working primarily in oil, I build my surfaces through successive layers, glazes, and textures that allow the painting to retain the memory of its own making. Geometry simplifies forms without stripping them of their humanity. Rather than depicting the world as it appears, I seek to construct a space where the ordinary acquires the resonance of myth.
Although my work originates in deeply personal experiences, it is not intended to speak only of a particular country or biography. I aspire to create images that can be inhabited by anyone. I believe there are emotions, symbols, and questions that belong to all of us, regardless of culture or history.
In recent years, my practice has evolved toward the creation of a personal mythology. Series inspired by the seasons, medieval books of hours, archetypal figures, and musical instruments transformed into relics do not attempt to illustrate existing narratives. Instead, they suggest that it is still possible to create new symbols for our own time. For me, painting is an act of contemplation. Each work seeks to suspend the pace of everyday life and open a space where memory, nature, and the spirit may encounter one another once again. If my paintings awaken in the viewer the feeling of remembering a place they have never visited, then I feel the work has fulfilled its purpose.
June 2026
