Identity, Landscape, and Political Restriction in Cuban Art History, An Extension of the Themes Presented by María Martínez-Cañas

Abstract

The search for freedom and identity throughout history forced migration on many in the Cuban population. Searching for identity as a Cuban exile, experimental photo-based artist María Martínez-Cañas addresses geographical positions by utilizing the camera as a tool for understanding oneself beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Complementing the work of Martínez-Cañas, Cuban artists Amelia Pelàez and Wifredo Lam, have similarly adapted the island of Cuba as a form of landscape, and a search for Cuban identity as a motivation to their work, serving as a significant inspiration to Martínez-Cañas. Further research has guided a collective search for identity experienced by all Cuban artists as they work through their processes. Cubanidad is the sense of having a Cuban identity, how one identifies their Cuban heritage and the self, imbedded into the artistic determination of artists living in the diaspora. Cuban people continue to push for a search of individual and collective identity.