Ernesto Gutiérrez Moya

b. 1995, Havana, Cuba

I believe that personal and ambiguous creation is what forces the observer to question what is being seen. - Ernesto Gutiérrez Moya

Selected Works

Ernesto Gutiérrez Moya

Introduction

Biography

Introduction

Ernesto Gutiérrez Moya grew up, studied art, and later taught painting in Havana, Cuba. His work reflects a more traditional painting education, noticeable in his fluency in paint handling, color, composition and style, all of which refer to Western art before the 20th century. When he moved to the United States, he continued painting spaces shaped by architectural elements, as he had in Cuba, but, about five years ago, he began exploring his new landscape, especially lush gardens and ornate fountains. Focusing on these spaces and meditative objects were ways for him to make a place for himself, whether in one new home or many.

Baroque stylistic details place Moya’s paintings in the company of dramatic and ornate colonial architecture. One can see a great deal of this in Habana Vieja, where there are centuries on view in a single plaza. His paintings collect vestiges of many eras and all picture ways humans mediate nature. Curator Emerson-Dorsch wrote: “Moya’s spaces – around the fountains, in gardens – can be dynamic, arrested in time, or literally on fire–pero, no hay nadie. There’s no one there.”

His most recent series of paintings play an important role in The thing which is not: two artists, two poems, on view at Emerson Dorsch through March 23, 2024.