CucubaNación
CucubaNación is an intimate store front art space in the heart of el casco urbano de Mayagüez. Before opening as a space in 2022, CucubaNación began in 2018 as an art project. As a painter, I’ve been working with glowing colors over black backgrounds since my first visit to the bioluminescent bay in Vieques in 2006. That experienced changed my life and aesthetics. After moving to the archipelago in 2014 and spending four months without electricity following Hurricane María, CucubaNación emerged as a bioluminescence project inspired by the fireflies and cucubanos of those dark nights. I also returned to painting our ancestors in the blues of the bioluminescent dinoflagellates of our bays. Below are some of the artworks created for this project. These were among the first pieces to be exhibited at CucubaNación. To learn more about CucubaNación the art series/ my art studio/ gallery/ community art space, click here to visit the project page.
"Luisa Cósmica" 2022 Acrylic on canvas, 36 x 24 inches "Existirá el libre cambio pues estarán abolidas las fronteras y la verdadera Libertad reinará en este planeta. Procura tu ayudar con la práctica a la realización de estas..." (Free exchange would exist as borders would be abolished and true liberation would reign on this planet. Seek to help with the practice of realizing these...) Luisa Capetillo was a Puerto Rican labor organizer, writer, activist, anarchist and espiritista. She wrote Puerto Rico's first feminist text in 1911, Mi Opinion sobre las libertades, derechos y deberes de la mujer. History most remembers her for wearing pants and being arrested for doing so but the depths and breadth of her writing, which was eons before its time, is her greatest achievement. This work envisions her as a luminous spirit. The painting was created for a tribute exhibit on the centennial of her passing at Casa Ulanga in Arecibo.
"El Cucubano Mayor" 2020 (Rafael Cancel Miranda) Acrylic on canvas, 18 x 24 inches
"Ya yo vi la luna" (Lolita Lebrón) 2019 Acrylic on canvas, 14 x 18 inches
"Fly Papi" 2019. (Portrait of my father) Acrylic on black fabric, 38 x 30 inches
"La Luz que me alumbra," 2019 Acrylic on canvas, 24 x 30 inches
"Amante de la libertad" (Nina Droz Franco) 2019 Acrylic on canvas, 24 x 18 inches
"Shine Your Light" (Exonerated Five), 2019. Acrylic on canvas, 36 x 48 inches
Detail, "Shine Your Light" (Exonerated Five), 2019. Acrylic on canvas, 36 x 48 inches
"Hermandad Bioluminiscente", 2018. Acrylic on Canvas. 30 x 24 inches
"Bioluminescent Brother," 2019. Acrylic on dark blue fabric, 32 x 43 inches
"Betances Bioluminescente," 2018. Acrylic on canvas, 18 x 36 inches.
"Flor de Justicia" (Alma Yarida Cruz). 2018. Acrylic on black fabric, 8 x 4 feet Lyrics by Rita Indiana
Detail, "Flor de Justicia" (Alma Yarida Cruz). 2018. Acrylic on black fabric, 8 x 4 feet
"Las Maravillosas Huerteritas", 2018 Acrylic on black fabric. 8 x 4 feet
"Niñes Escolares," 2018. Acrylic on Canvas, 24 x 30 inches
"CucubaNación", 2018. Outdoor Mural, 2 Calle San Vicente, Mayagüez, Puerto Rico
"Luisa Cósmica" 2022 Acrylic on canvas, 36 x 24 inches "Existirá el libre cambio pues estarán abolidas las fronteras y la verdadera Libertad reinará en este planeta. Procura tu ayudar con la práctica a la realización de estas..." (Free exchange would exist as borders would be abolished and true liberation would reign on this planet. Seek to help with the practice of realizing these...) Luisa Capetillo was a Puerto Rican labor organizer, writer, activist, anarchist and espiritista. She wrote Puerto Rico's first feminist text in 1911, Mi Opinion sobre las libertades, derechos y deberes de la mujer. History most remembers her for wearing pants and being arrested for doing so but the depths and breadth of her writing, which was eons before its time, is her greatest achievement. This work envisions her as a luminous spirit. The painting was created for a tribute exhibit on the centennial of her passing at Casa Ulanga in Arecibo.
"El Cucubano Mayor" 2020 (Rafael Cancel Miranda) Acrylic on canvas, 18 x 24 inches Portrait of Rafael Cancel Miranda as cucubano, bioluminescent click beetle. I completed this painting right before he passed, in the light of our bioluminescent beetles. He is the first portrait of this series that I paint with brown tones. My first cucubano paintings are of green figures and the rest are inspired by common fireflies (red, black, yellow, green). But don Rafa as one of the last Puerto Rican Nationalist combatants of the 50s had to be the first painted in this way, for all the romance and legend connected to cucubanos in Puerto Rico. I debuted the portrait on the anniversary of the March 1st, 1954 attack in Washington, for which he spent 25 years as a political prisoner in the US. He went on to the realm of the ancestors the following evening, March 2nd, 2020.
"Ya yo vi la luna" (Lolita Lebrón) 2019. Acrylic on canvas, 14 x 18 inches. I started this piece on March 1st, 2018, when the full moon coincided with the anniversary of the mission Lolita Lebrón led (of which Rafael Cancel Miranda was a part) in Washington that date in 1954 to protest US colonialism in Puerto Rico. Lolita served 25 years is US federal prisons as a result. I later added to the piece, completing it in November 2019 when we commemorated the centennial of Lolita’s birth. It includes a quote from Lolita's interview with Dr. Consuelo Martinez-Reyes. “Ya yo vi la luna: la última entrevista a Lolita Lebrón." Contemplating her transition at over 90 years old she said “I will be able to better appreciate the air, the stars, the sun. I have already seen the moon.”
"Fly Papi" 2019. (Portrait of my father) Acrylic on black fabric, 38 x 30 inches. Portrait of my father in the 1980s, from my CucubaNación series inspired by fireflies and bioluminescence. Red heads, black bodies with yellow outlines and green glows are the colors of the common firefly, colors of black liberation. With this portrait series I affirm Puerto Rico’s place within the African diaspora. I painted my father in the dashikis he was known for wearing during my childhood.
"La Luz que me alumbra," 2019 Acrylic on canvas, 24 x 30 inches In this self-portrait with my mother I consider the glow of fireflies in the same way I work with nebulas to represent spirit energy. Thinking that I needed a title for this piece, a few minutes later the song I was listening to, “Soy Canastero”, a bulería by Diego Cigala sang “tu eres la luz que me alumbra” (you are the light that illuminates me). My mother's image is inspired by Taíno mother goddess Atabey.
"Amante de la libertad" (Nina Droz Franco) 2019. Acrylic on canvas, 24 x 18 inches Portrait of the recently released Puerto Rican political prisoner Nina Droz Franco, as a firefly channeling the warrior spirit of the indigenous ancestors of these lands. Nina was arrested at the protests against the colonial debt and severe austerity measures on May Day 2017. She was released in late 2019.
"Shine Your Light" (Exonerated Five), 2019. Acrylic on canvas, 36 x 48 inches. Left to right: Yusef Salaam, Kevin Richardson, Korey Wise, Raymond Santana, Antron McCray. This portrait juxtaposes the boys of the Central Park Five with their images as men: the Exonerated Five. I was 14 in 1989, same age as several of the boys at the time of their arrest, and was transformed deeply after watching Duvernay’s When They See Us. I felt it was necessary to paint them shining their light, inspired by fireflies (red heads, black wings with yellow outlines and green glow: colors of black liberation.) This painting is a commentary on injustice, the stealing of the innocence of black boys, the violation of black men across the planet and a meditation on, and call to lift, the divine masculine. Included is a lyric excerpt from Yasiin Bey’s "Umi Says"- “Shine your light for the world to see…. I want black people to be free, to be free, to be free …. That’s all that matters to me.”
Detail, "Shine Your Light" (Exonerated Five), 2019. Acrylic on canvas, 36 x 48 inches Left to right" Korey Wise, Raymond Santana, Antron McCray
"Hermandad Bioluminiscente", 2018. Acrylic on Canvas. 30 x 24 inches. Painted in the color of our bioluminescent bay, this portrait of legendary Puerto Rican poet Julia de Burgos (on the right) and her sister Consuelo chronicles their love across waters with excerpts of letters Julia would write to Consuelo and of her poems. “Looking at you is seeing myself whole in light, rolling in blue.” Their inter-ocean sisterhood between New York and Puerto Rico reminds me of my own experience having most of my family in the states while I am in Puerto Rico, and of the many families of the Caribbean islands and coastal communities displaced by the storms.
"Bioluminescent Brother," 2019. Acrylic on dark blue fabric, 32 x 43 inches. This is my oceanic/ celestial/ bioluminescent B-Boy brother Joseph. We lost him at 43 to Multiple Myeloma, a blood cancer. I finished this painting at precisely the same age (minus a week) that he was when he died. He grew up with hip hop, a child of music, of graffiti, a food lover. I first started painting bioluminescence in 2009 for a painting series dedicated to Vieques. He received his cancer diagnosis while I was on a research trip to Vieques in 2008. I painted him alongside the fish that gave him so much peace in his times of battle and the majestic bioluminescence of the waters of our ancestors. My spirit owes a huge part of its evolution to the honor of having been born his sister.
"Betances Bioluminiscente," 2018. Acrylic on canvas, 18 x 36 inches. Betances, father of the Puerto Rican Nationality, abolitionist, fought in the French Revolution and authored the Lares Revolution of 1868. As a journalist and novelist, his pen name was el Antillano (the Antillean) describing his work as a physician and commitment to the health of communities in Puerto Rico, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, the Virgin Islands and Cuba. I painted him emerging from colonial post-María darkness to anoint and illuminate the Antilles with healing bioluminescent waters flowing from his hands.
"Flor de Justicia" (Alma Yarida Cruz). 2018. Acrylic on black fabric, 8 x 4 feet Lyrics by Rita Indiana 2018. Acrylic on black fabric 8' x 4' Lyric excerpt by Rita Indiana: Clavo con clavo/ Soga con sal/ To' lo corrupto van a temblar/ Cuando me suba el castigador/ Flor de Justicia del trovador In Puerto Rico, 2017, when she was just 11 years old, Alma Yarida Cruz’ school principal called the police and had her arrested for standing up to her bullies who teased her for being black. The community came to her defense & together with the efforts of her lawyer were able to get the case dismissed. Alma was the first portrait I painted in this color scheme inspired by the common lightning bug, colors also associated with African liberation. With this image and palette, I anchor Puerto Rico’s place in the African Diaspora, and use a West African adinkra symbol of justice (tamfo bebre) on her headband.
Detail, "Flor de Justicia" (Alma Yarida Cruz). 2018. Acrylic on black fabric, 8 x 4 feet 2018. Acrylic on black fabric 8' x 4' Lyric excerpt by Rita Indiana: Clavo con clavo/ Soga con sal/ To' lo corrupto van a temblar/ Cuando me suba el castigador/ Flor de Justicia del trovador In Puerto Rico, 2017, when she was 11 years old, Alma Yarida Cruz’ school principal called the police and had her arrested for standing up to her bullies who teased her for being black. The community came to her defense & together with the efforts of her lawyer were able to get the case dismissed. Alma was the first portrait I painted in this color scheme inspired by the common lightning bug, colors also associated with African liberation. With this image and palette, I anchor Puerto Rico’s place in the African Diaspora, and use a West African adinkra symbol of justice (tamfo bebre) on her headband.
"Las Maravillosas Huerteritas", 2018 Acrylic on black fabric. 8 x 4 feet 2018 Acrylic on black fabric 8' x 4' Lyric excerpts by Digable Planets (I’m interplanetary/ My insect movements vary.... Peace be the greeting of the insect tribe). El Maravillos Huerto de los Niños (The Wonderful Children’s Garden) was started by my friend Lin Benitez in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico after her community experienced seven months of no lights following the storms. Their school was used as a shelter, so for many months the children roamed bored around the community. Lin manages the collection of donated tools and seeds from various sources and leads the children in the planting and harvest of herbs, fruits and vegetables with the children. The lyrics from Digable Planets speak to the transcendence and love ethic they found inspired by insects, which I use as a metaphor here for the work in this community.
"Niñes Escolares," 2018. Acrylic on Canvas, 24 x 30 inches 2018. Acrylic on Canvas 24" x 30" On May 1st, 2018 in San Juan, the police tear-gassed and pepper-sprayed the crowds that gathered to protest budget cuts to the public university, mass closings of public schools and other austerity measures. Among those present and tear-gassed were school children themselves. Here they take on the traits of cucubanos/ fireflies in defense of their education. They wear gas masks to protect themselves from the riot squad seen in the background amidst the fallen trees and powerlines of our post-hurricanes landscape.
"CucubaNación", 2018. Outdoor Mural, 2 Calle San Vicente, Mayagüez, Puerto Rico 2018. Outdoor Mural, 2 Calle San Vicente, Mayagüez, Puerto Rico Approx. 8’ x 10’ “We shall be cucubanos/ Emitting our light/ Illuminated with love/ Repelling enemies” –CucubaNación “To see certain things, other eyes are needed, the eyes of the spirit.”- Eugenio María de Hostos. I created this work, with the help of my sons, for the Mayaguez Campechada art festival (dedicated to Hostos) following the May Day clash between protestors and riot squads in San Juan. They represent a mother/ daughter pair protesting mass school closings yet protecting themselves from the tear gas of the riot squads.