media on

an exhibit by Cuban-American artist

Xavier Cortada


Miami Herald article by Pulitzer Prize-winning Columnist Liz Balmaseda on April 11th, 1998
Sun-Sentinel article by Deborah Ramirez on April 4th, 1998
Excerpts from April Witt's Jan. 18, 1998 Miami Herald article
Press Release for CUBABA exhibit

Excerpts from a Jan. 18, 1998 Miami Herald article:


Photo by Jeffery A. Salter

Varela could get sainthood

Cubans eagerly await the pope's decision


By APRIL WITT
Herald Staff Writer

Miami artist Xavier Cortada, 33, is painting a portrait of Varela for an exhibit exploring the artist's personal struggle for Cuban identity. Born in the United States, Cortada knows Cuba only through family stories and letters from relatives he has never met.

His visceral, surreal portrait of Varela shows the priest with lion's paws instead of hands. In the tearing grip of one paw Varela holds a boy, Cortada as a child. In the other paw is a document, representing both Varela's exile writings and Cortada's family letters from Cuba.

``It's a very painful experience, missing someone you've never seen,'' Cortada said. ``What this painting is about is how this suffering is a Cuban right of passage. Varela is telling me, these writings, let them make you cry. To not do that is an affront to history and what's happened to your nation.''

 

 

STRONG IMAGERY: Xavier Cortada, born in the U.S., expresses the pain and struggle of the exile experience through his painting of Father Felix Varela, a Cuban patriot who died in exile

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