The Raúl Martínez gallery once again becomes the chamber for a portion of Abel Denis’s immense body of work, marking his 75th anniversary of artistic life.
A female onlooker rose from one of the paintings and, upon seeing me, exclaimed, «How lovely, isn’t it?» In her eyes was that same captured light, mixed emotions, joy, wonder. And that is the most legitimate proof of how much a two-dimensional artistic expression, handmade and with that timeless scent of oil paint, signed by master Abel Denis, can reach the people.
An exhibition of his 17 landscapes, also reviewed by the city’s historian Ángel Cabrera and specialist Mayslett Sánchez Clemente, who took the lead in writing the catalogue text, was the tribute for 75 years dedicated to landscape painting, always using oil as the vehicle to reflect all things Cuban and as a means of continuing a tradition.
«That pigment is the path to the landscape,» the artist confides to Invasor, «and I am doubly happy with every exhibition I hold because it gives me the opportunity for people to see my paintings and offer their assessments.»
The occasion was also fitting for the Martí Society, through its president Odalys Sánchez, to recall in brushstrokes the useful life of this 83-year-old painter who still accompanies the Homeland from his sea at Punta Alegre, the thickets of Majagua, and the recognition of every inhabitant who sees themselves in those brushstrokes.
The vice-president of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) in the city of the porticos, Alberto Fernández Pena, reaffirmed that the pictorial work of Abel Denis is the mark of a true-blooded artist who is constantly creating and exhibiting in every space offered to sustain his work and present it to the world.
Abel’s pictorial consistency is one of his most recurrent and admirable attributes, an aspect that gives harmony to his work and attitude towards life, allowing him to remain a reference for future and current generations, as rightly said by Osvaldo Gutiérrez Gómez, president of the UNEAC Visual Arts branch, who was present at the evening.
Before a diverse audience, not only in terms of generations but also in institutional representation, Abel showed himself to be grateful and attentive to all the expressions of affection.
«My Landscapes», established with works spanning the years 2024 and 2025, and others from earlier, is a display of his pictorial sagacity, his taste for emotive brushstrokes, for the light that takes centre stage in the Cuban countryside, and for water, the matrix of all things Cuban.
Part of it has already been exhibited at the UNEAC’s Azagaya gallery; in the municipality of Chambas, «where almost all of it was born with incredible desire and delight,» according to the creator himself; as well as in the lobby of the Avilanian television centre.
As Denis himself well expressed, every opening is an opportunity for dialogue; it does not matter if the works have travelled some distance, they will never grow old, they will never go out of fashion because they are snapshots of real life. I saw that too, in the gaze of that woman when she finished looking at the paintings and released her most genuine emotion in words that echoed throughout the gallery.
