Arístides Hernández Guerrero, Ares (Havana, 1963) counts among the most significant of Cuban graphic humorism of all time. Awarded more than 150 awards nationally and internationally, he has developed a sustained career as a cartoonist and cartoonist that, in recent years, has expanded its borders to other manifestations of art. Among his most recent proposals is the Touch Wood series, composed of paintings, sculptures and installations where the religious plays a fundamental role.
In this attractive collection of pieces, Ares draws inspiration from doors, commonly used architectural elements, and typical aldabas, metal instruments used to attract the attention of tenants. Only these doors, intervened by the artist, include representations of well-known christian advocations (relating to Christ) and Marians (relating to the Virgin Mary), as well as images of deities or symbols belonging to the main religious and ethical-philosophical systems of Eastern origin.
One of the main protagonists of the series is Our Lady of Copper Charity. The iconographic model that depicts it standing on an infraverse crescent (with the tips down), holding the Child Jesus on the left arm and with the Three Johns at his feet, appears transformed into a large aldabón, accompanying the image of the yacht Granma or levitating on a background of golden volutes that remind us of the sky of the famous painting The Starry Night (1889) , by Vincent van Gogh, while, in the lower half of the door, we appreciate sunflowers that refer to heliotropes equally painted by the brilliant Dutch painter at various points in his life.
In addition, the artist uses the motif of the aldaba in various variants (zoomorfas, phytomorphs, ovals, hand-shaped or co-heeled), placing it on representations of christ the Pantocrate, a Buddha surrounded by elephants and the effigy of the blue Visnú, the Preservative, one of the most important Hindu gods. It also places them on aniconic representations (without human form), including the growing crescent accompanied by the five-pointed star that refers to Islam; the Star of David, an identity symbol of Judaism, or replacing the solitary star on the Cuban flag. We can even see some callers on a fragment of the Habanero Malecon, at the back of the artist’s head or on the chest of our National Hero, ready to “wake up” the creative thinking, the teachings of the martyrdom legacy or the painful memories that have caused in many the migration process to northern lands.
Through this magnificent series of paintings and sculptures, Ares proposes ways of accessing spirit and hope, poetry and knowledge. At the same time, it recognizes the existence of different avenues of access to spirituality and faith, concepts that transcend the framework of the strictly religious to embed multiple areas of subjectivity and intellectuality.
Let us then approach the doors of Arístides Hernández. Perhaps we will find, behind its polychrome surfaces, the ideal method for (as one of them prays) to rip us from the chest as much as we have of anger and horror. Ω
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