Rolando López Dirube (1920)

Dirube
Rolando L. Dirube is one of the great plastic artists of Latin America.
He was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1928, and has been scholarship holder from the Cuban Government, of the Brooklyn Museum of New York, Institute of Hispanic Culture and the Institute of International Education of New York (Foundation Tapes).
Many of his works have been acquired by the most important museums of the world.

Dirube is a painter, sculptor, engraver, and muralist. His art represents pure poetic emotion by virtue of its strict will of definition. The artist has always expressed his creativity through an endless number of techniques, many of which have been devised and perfected by himself.
The artist has been known to use the subtlety of drawing - he is a fabulous sketcher - as well as computers in the design of modular murals. Perhaps between the artists of century XX nobody since Dirube has been able to find a solution of continuity between art and technique, the search of an aesthetic ideal and the technical tools that require said research.

Now that I am older I realize that childhood memories are important, although an artist should work from his knowledge, not from inspiration. I lost my hearing as a child; it happened quite suddenly. Painting became a process of verificat ion: if I couldn't draw an object or person, I couldn't trust its existence. I am still a compulsive pointer. I have sought to accentuate the physical beauty of things; that was the motivation behind the Swords' Series, and the Mirrors Series. By using wo od and stone, I have negated the functionality of the object and emphasized its beauty. Stone swords cannot kill; wooden mirrors cannot reflect images. I denied them their vital characteristic.

I don't believe an artist should work in only one medium, alt hough many do just that. Artists are rich in ideas, and should channel them through every possible medium; the more, the better. That is how I have worked all my life. After traveling throughout the United States, Europe and parts of Latin America, I decided to settle in Puerto Rico; of all my options, it seemed to be the place closest to the Cauto River, in Oriente. Since leaving Cuba in 1960, I have done nothing but my art work. I don't think we can speak of a ''Cuban'' art; it takes centuries to define a national identity, and we are still growing and experimenting with our aesthetics I am certain that exile has influenced my work, but in what way?...that remains a mystery.

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