Artist Statements & Critique

More than a portrait, this is a time capsule -my attempt to preserve a fragment of the Cuban landscape and part of its diplomatic history. Created with layers of acrylic and resin on canvas and inserts of soil from Vuelta Abajo, tobacco leaves, and grass gathered from the gardens of the Nacional Hotel in Havana, this piece keeps memory, geography, and material history. 

Sir Winston Churchill is rendered in high-contrast colors -fiery yellows, electric blues, and saturated reds- echoing the tension between past and future. These tones are intentionally unstable, luminous to the point of discomfort. They represent the contrast between the vividness of memory and the uncertainty of what lies ahead for our planet. While the portrait evokes an historical persona, the emphasis is not on likeness but on legacy: the legacy of travel, of diplomacy, of culture exchanged through smoke and soil.

The embedded cigar, adorned with the Romeo y Julieta Churchill band, serves as a bridge between artifact and image. It transforms the painting into a vessel carrying its own historical residue. Through this fusion of medium and material, the work asks the viewer to consider how history is preserved -not only in archives and monuments, but in the land itself, and in the rituals that emerge from it.

Ultimately, this piece seeks to hold a moment in suspension: a meeting of environment, identity, and memory. It invites reflection on how the landscapes we inherit will transform under the pressures of time, and how the colors of our world may shift as its future unfolds.

This series is a homage to celebrate the 100 anniversary of Celia Cruz, the Queen of Salsa.

I have created these portraits in a neofigurative style focusing my attention in her living legacy and converting the paintings in time capsules that hold memories and spirit rather than a single moment captured in a photographic style. 

The technical process that I used in this series is superimposing successive layers of acrylic, matter and resin. This method allows me to build visual depth, variations in light, and effects of conceptual sedimentation. Each layer functions as an archaeological gesture -an accumulation of present and past- where the painted surface becomes a space of memory. This technique, which combines transparency, glazing, thickness, and three-dimensionality, not only defines my artistic language but also supports the notion that the image is always a palimpsest.

The color, deliberately saturated and expansive, goes beyond a mere aesthetic device; it is a symbolic code that evokes energy, music, and vitality in the performance. The compositions seek to capture Celia's powerful stage presence, transforming her from an individual figure into a cultural phenomenon of global reach.

This series proposes a reflection on how the art of the spectacle can preserve legacies, activate memories, and project them into the future. My aspiration is that each piece transcends its own historical time and becomes a visual archive of identity, becoming part of the cultural heritage left to us by the Queen of Salsa.

 My work seeks to preserve the fading cultural and environmental memory of eastern Cuba, particularly the forgotten coffee terraces of Guantánamo—once thriving plantations and now fragile UNESCO World Heritage ruins slowly dissolving into the landscape. Through this painting, I aim to reanimate that history and call attention to its ongoing erasure.

Using a neo-figurative approach and a vivid, textural palette of acrylic and resin, I focus less on portraiture and more on transforming the canvas into a time capsule. The figure becomes a conduit through which the surrounding environment speaks: the terraces, the coffee plants, the carved wooden mortar, and the luminous shifts of the tropical sky. These elements together form a narrative of labor, land, and legacy.

Integral to my process is the incorporation of natural materials directly sourced from the region—tobacco leaves, soil and stones from Guantanamo, coffee beans, and a piece of royal palm tree. Once embedded beneath resin and painted over, these materials become both medium and message. They bind the artwork to the physical place it represents, grounding the image in its own history.

By merging representation with preservation, I strive to create works that honor the overlooked stories carried by the Cuban landscape. This painting stands as a testament for future generations, urging recognition of a heritage that risks being lost and affirming the enduring connection between land, memory, and cultural identity. 

By Adriel Perez - Visual Artist & Curator

An old wooden window, a box of cigars, a coin, a palm tree…
In Elmer Castillo’s art, these are not just objects — they are storytellers. His work doesn’t simply hang on the wall; it carries the weight of history, the scent of tobacco, and the rhythm of music. Four recent pieces reveal an artist who refuses to separate the tangible from the painted, creating a body of work that feels as real as it looks.

Some artists paint what they see. Others paint what they remember. Elmer Castillo paints with both — merging memory and matter, fusing the physical world into his art so that it breathes with history.

In his recent body of work, four pieces stand as proof that a painting can be more than pigment on a surface. In Castillo’s hands, art becomes a vessel of memory, a bridge between cultures, and a tangible echo of the past.

The Window to the Sacred
An old wooden window, rescued from its past life, becomes the frame for a Byzantine-inspired composition in gold and blue. Painted with ceramic acrylic and sealed in epoxy resin, the piece plays with geometry and symbolism. The aged frame speaks of time passed; the ornate patterns whisper of devotion and eternity. It is not simply something to look through, but something to look into. 

Churchill’s Smoke
Winston Churchill’s portrait here is more than brushwork — it is embedded with actual tobacco leaves, cigar bands, and a golden Romeo y Julieta brooch. This is not decoration; it’s biography in texture. The roughness of the tobacco contrasts with the deliberate dot-and-line patterns on his hat and suit, a visual rhythm echoing the grit and precision of his character. 

Hemingway and the Sea
Thick acrylic textures shape the weathered face of Ernest Hemingway, the fisherman-writer. A marlin arcs behind him, not as an accessory but as a chapter of his life: The Old Man and the Sea. Inlaid into the canvas is a wooden cigar box lid, stamped and aged — a tactile anchor that ties literature to leisure, the sea to the smoke. 

Celia Cruz in Color
Here, color takes center stage. A laughing Celia Cruz bursts from a canvas of saturated yellow, pink, and blue. Inlaid wood and a coin link the work to her Caribbean roots. A palm tree leans into the scene, a ribbon of cigar smoke dances upward, and joy becomes contagious. This is not just a portrait — it’s music in visual form. 

The Thread That Ties Them Together
Though each piece stands alone, they are united by a single artistic impulse: Castillo’s desire to merge painting with real objects that carry their own history. Tobacco leaves, wood, coins — these are not props but storytellers. They bring a tangible truth to the image, allowing the viewer to not only see but almost touch the narrative.

In an age where the digital often replaces the physical, Elmer Castillo’s work reclaims the presence of the object. His paintings remind us that art can still be something you feel with your eyes and your hands.