Maikel Dominguez Cuban-American, b. 1989

 I come from a country where human rights are violated. In my country everything is politics, even art. In my country there is censorship for art outside the interests of government. My painting has always been a refuge, a space of freedom, an island within another island. My work is also an example of survival against the cruelty of a context where human rights are violated. With my work I do not denounce an injustice, with my painting I survive injustice in a strange land. My work is not just painting on canvas, my work is attitude towards life. My work is a process, a mental state through which I search and find happiness.

To me art is an instrument with which I can do magic, generate my own reality and establish a direct connection between each individual´s physical and spiritual world. I believe artistic creation must be rewarding and healing for the artist, only then can he offer the Object-Art as knowledge and experience.

My search is focused in the creation of a universe ruled by balance. The results are fragments, narrations of a bittersweet world, full of contrasts and cynics; pastel atmospheres where my characters find relief. In any case I draw on the idea of sacrifice and pain, not from the perspective of the quiet observer that delights himself in the anatomy of the maimed body but from that of who encourages and supports what was already dead. 

Artist Statement

Podcast interview in spanish

Publications and Texts
Film on Maikel and his work