FORMS MADE HUMAN

“Cuban-born artist Yovani Bauta is a storyteller. He paints the human condition, recording observations in heavily applied paint using brush and palette knife. While the finished product is representational his initial approach to the surface is abstract. Slowly, figures organically emerge. His subjects are ordinary but the emotional and technical results are extraordinary.

An accomplished art critic, lecturer, writer and lawyer, Bauta put these disciplines aside to follow his passion for art. For him, the process of painting and the subjects he chooses align greatly with his observation of everyday life. Using the figure as his source material, he draws out the soul of his subject’s inner self. There is an emotional authenticity to his work that creates a frozen moment in time. His use of non-traditional “portrait” colors give his figures a sense of mystery, a behind-the-scenes look at the human condition.

Most important in Bauta’s work is his serious look at society expressed with a sense of humor. His subjects are contemporary and his style is expressionistic. Although his paintings are realistic there is an abstract quality to the finished product: a yellow leg, a red face – color application that one would not traditionally find in the figure, creating an echo of a figure. Bauta’s paintings tend toward serious observations of society with an ever-present undertone of sensuality. The vocabulary of his work is human interest and the society it inhabits is expressed through insight and subtle characterization”.

Gail Casade, Director, Sardiñas Gallery, St. Thomas University Miami, Florida