Introduction

Oandris is a painter coming from Cuba currectly living and painting in Bremen, Germany. Born in Santiago de Cuba in the year 1979, he developed himself into a self-taught painter. Prior to that he studied Social Sciences at the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela and has participated several Art exhibitions. Those include ten solo and group exhibitions in Colombia, Cuba and Argentina. Joa uses mostly a palette of dark hues and tones.

Early life and the artistic background.

Oandris Tejeiro was born in Santiago de Cuba, in the heart of the Caribbean, in 1979. He grew up in underprivileged neighbourhoods, where the population is mostly Afro-descendant. There he absorbed the essence of the suburban culture as well as the Afro-Cuban roots of his city. He experiences the daily conflicts of Afro-Cubans, men and women, who struggle to have a presence and a voice in society. Through the genre of portraiture he tells the stories of these people from the substratum of society in contemporary Cuba.

Oandris is a self-taught artist who began to develop his work employing different techniques and materials. For his portraits, he uses black and white tones that run like a thread through the stories he tells. The influence of the Rastafari culture and musicians of the urban genre (reggae and Cuban hip hop) play an important role in his art. Consequently, texts and fragments of everyday sentences related to the people he portrays appear in some of his works, attempting to establish contact and communication with the people who observe them.

In addition, Oandris studied socio-cultural studies at the University of Oriente and worked at the Casa del Caribe, where he investigated more closely the Afro-Cuban roots and racial conflicts of contemporary Cuba. He also explores unconventional materials, collage, and mixed media to give his works the formal synthesis necessary to express the essence of what his portraits are about in a reduced and pointed manner.

He was part of the exhibition Cuba adentro of the Luciano Benetton Collection. Oandris has exhibited his work in Cuba, Colombia, Argentina, Spain and Germany. In 2015, he was granted an art residency in Bremen, where he currently lives and continues to experiment with innovative materials and forms in the realization of new portraits.

Bullet point takeaways from artists life

• Self-taught artist

• Studied at Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela

• Paints in Afrocubanismo style

• Currently living and working in Bremen, Germany

What is Afrocubanismo

Afrocubanismo was an artistic and social movement in black-themed Cuban culture with origins in the 1920s, as in works by the cultural anthropologist Fernando Ortiz. The Afrocubanismo movement focused on establishing the legitimacy of african identity in Cuban society, culture, and art. Although thought of mainly as a black phenomenon, the roots of Afrocubanismo originated from White Cuban interests. Afrocubanismo was first developed by formally trained White Cuban elites, not Afro-Cubans. White Afrocubanista art typically depicted black subjects using highly stylized forms. White Cubans appropriated the aesthetics of African art and altered them using Euro-centric techniques and philosophies of aesthetic beauty. White Afrocubanistas were not concerned with accurately portraying Afro-Cuban life or customs. Rather, these Euro-Cubans sought to make traditional elements of African art more palatable for mainstream Cuban society. In an essay entitled "Uniting Blacks in a raceless nation," author Arnedo-Gomez describes this cultural appropriation by White Cubans explaining, “...the movement accommodated and folklorised Afro-Cuban... forms in order to make them acceptable within the dominant European-derived tradition. -Source: Wikipedia-

Afrocubanismo features

• African identity in Cuban society

• Cultural appropriation of African descendants in Cuba

• Folklorized african culture

Artist statement

​Through portraiture, my work reflects the stories of marginal characters in contemporary Afro-Cuban culture. Men, women, youth; those who are stigmatized and people who live the daily ravages of racial conflicts in today's Cuba, who struggle to have a voice and presence in society. The use of a limited palette of unconventional colors, textiles, objects and materials, which form a collective patchwork; has been fundamental in the development of my work. The use of colors such as black and white tones have marked my work, and they have given it the necessary formal synthesis to express, in a timely manner, the essence of the characters that i paint. On occasions, these elements become stories of daily life and show my work as visual reflection.
My paintings seek to show and vindicate Afro-Cuban roots through a pictorial language that is accessible to all, an emotional language that reflects the viewer as in a mirror. With this work i intend to establish contact and communication with the people who observe it; especially the young Afro-descendants, by showing their roots and making them proud of it.

DISCOVER TEJEIRO´S ART HERE.

Selected exhibitions

2024 Hybrid Gallery Von Hauerland, Munich, Germany.

2021 Villa Sponte, Bremen, Germany

2019 Swan, Wuppertal, Germany

2012 Chromosomes, 11th Havana Biennale, Martin Fernando Boada Gallery, Havana
2012 Afrocultivate, solo exhibition, Provincial Center of Plastic Arts and Design, Santiago de Cuba
2010 Solo exhibition, Biennale of Young Art, University of Suba, Bogota, Colombia
2008 Solo exhibition, Biennale of Young Art, University of Suba, Bogota, Colombia

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