By Camilo Alejandro on March 14, 2025 from Havana
A hundred and thirty years after the untimely death of Jose Marti, and in the midst of the socioeconomic hardship the Cubans face, his ideas continue to inspire visual artists on the Island.
Hermaiony de la Caridad Villa Machado is one of the most renowned up and coming visual artists in Cuba. She works and works, almost to the point of obsession. Picasso would be proud. Except for the fact that Picasso’s work revolutionized painting and left us with “cubism”, but Hermaiony prefers “artistic realism”. She captures on the canvas exactly what she sees, no matter the consequences. It’s ten o’clock on a Saturday morning and I’m at Cuba’s University of Arts (ISA), standing in front of the girl who paints Pepe.
Do you usually work like this, so elegant, I mean?
It is not like I didn’t want to dress up for the occasion, but I have another meeting at 12- She smiles, wearing dark stripes white pants, with a blue shirt and sandals. She is shy and, in a way, so am I. I have never interviewed an artist in the middle of her creation process before, which puts tremendous pressure on me and the hour and a half that I have to get this done.
We talk about everything: from Picasso to blackouts, her grandfather’s coffee and Marti. Lots about Marti. Ultimately, Cuba wouldn’t be the same if 130 years ago that 5.7-foot-tall man hadn’t died for her, and neither would personality.
Why so much interest in him?
That was the question I asked myself in December 2022 when I attended her exhibit “¡No me hables del cielo!”, at the Fine Arts National Academy San Alejandro. I had the piece “Yo moriré sin dolor” in front of me, a large format canvas (200 x 150 cm), where the Apostle appears defeated by two shots.
HVM: Sometimes the only thing we allow ourselves from Pepe is a cold statue. My first approach to him was through the pages of El presidio político en Cuba when I was sixteen, the same age he was when imprisoned. Pepe makes for a tough read, but his way of capturing concepts with images made me relate to him because I feel the same need whenever I’m writing poetry, prose or fiction, and all of it I put into my Hermaiony’s painting.
Hermaiony’s Marti is not like Kamil Bullaudy’s or Mendive’s, Jorge Arche’s, Carlos Enrique’s, Servando Cabrera’s, Nelson Dominguez’s or Fabelo’s. Hers is called Pepe and you can always see him in the flesh, without a halo. I didn’t hear her call him anything other than Pepe, and as close as she feels him, she paints him, meditating on his life as if trying to resemble.
“When you look at Hermaiony’s Marti you see Marti for the first time”. This is how Lil María Pichs Hernández, member of Marti Youth Movement and the Cultural Society Jose Marti, defined her work in a La Jiribilla article on November, 21st, 2022.
In words of the Cuban painter and master Gólgota Gómez (1970), shared on his Facebook profile, “¡No me hables del cielo! is more than a personal exhibit from an art student close to graduation, but a pictorial milestone that gets us much closer to understanding Jose Marti.”
We need to make him appealing for the younger generations – she says, like she is 50 rather than 20 years old – Many lack an interest in him because he is taught only through dates and events.
She is tiny and an introvert, with amazing dexterity for philosophy, and she speaks of her inner world as passionately as she paints. In the midst of all the alienation inflicted upon the Cuban youth by the Internet, there she stands, sophomore year of a visual arts degree, tremendously sure of what she wants. – “Painting is something I´ve been focusing on for quite some time – she explains- I can´t stop picturing worlds and scenarios. What time is it?”
-A quarter to twelve- It´s actually eleven and my joke helps us dissipate the tension and relax. We are at the Dome where visual arts students usually exhibit their pieces. The light coming through the windows is very helpful for her work but damaging for mine. I readjust my camera´s lens and press on the shutter.
Hermaiony had previously staged the scene with her work: hummingbirds and self-portraits on oil and charcoal. None of them show Marti. She managed to sale two pieces of her series and the rest she keeps on her house in Santa Clara. She had a blank canvas on an easel ready for a sketch, a table with pigments and a chair.
There´s also one of her art books on display: “Cado”. This is an album of sketches, thoughts and poems made with a quill like pen and ink. It was displayed in 2024 on “Punto Cubano” exhibit. She was the youngest of 14 Artists invited by the Ybor Arta Factory Gallery and the National Council for Visual Arts in Cuba.
I am not an expert in his life – she says, bringing me back to Pepe – but I can speak a little about his human side. She stresses the word “human” every time because to her “that is ultimately the great truth we share”.
The physical and “human” condition of Hermaiony is what connects her with Cuba’s national hero, for he had a great deal of health issues from a very young age, as a result of his time in prison. When she was a teenager a diagnosis of “Metabolic Myopathy” came into her life, a medical condition in which her body is unable to produce the required levels of energy, causing her constant exhaustion. It was during this time that her interest in Marti’s work grew, as a way of finding herself. She particularly mentions “Versos Libres”, Marti’s letters and “La Edad de Oro”.
How do you manage to paint such big paintings?
She is no more than 5 feet 2 and paints standing up in a little bench, because when it comes to art she knows no obstacles. Her working process requires the permanent company of music and you can see her enjoying her comfort zone.
“As a nation we face difficult times, and battered though our home might be, it is ours, so it’s on us to make it move forward.” Those are the words of a girl who doesn’t dare dictate how things should be done, but contributes in the ways she knows how to. “I try to do what I can to spark interest on Pepe, through my paintings and my work with Marti Youth Movement”.
In the end, how do you define yourself?
I am a girl who likes to paint and write in a traditional way, when that is the opposite of what’s expected of an artist. I’m told all the time to step out of my comfort zone because an artist must be versatile and multidimensional, “because an artist this and an artist that”. But the truth is, right now I don’t feel the need to break with my walls.
What if the consequence of not doing so is failure?
That is precisely what Marti is all about, being consistent with oneself. He knew from a young age that he would die fighting for Cuba’s independence, in spite of all the judgements he received and carrying within his soul that of a poet. Artists must live, first and foremost, for themselves and their art, and if my way of communicating is through traditional painting, I will stay on my canvas even if it means I end up selling hot dogs on the street.
This will certainly not be Hermaiony de la Caridad Villa Machado’s future. She doesn’t settle with the renown of her talent, but she studies and thrives while cultivating a humble and modest soul. It’s almost noon, she is 20 years old, has somewhere to be and a promising career ahead of her. Picasso would be proud to see her, and honestly, so would Jose Marti.
Source: Cuba en Resumen