| JOSÉ BEDIA |
Born in Havana, Cuba, in 1959, renowned artist José Bedia graduated
from the Escuela de Arte San Alejandro in Havana in 1976
and from the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana in 1981. He left
for Mexico in 1991, and later moved to Miami, where he now
lives. Bedia’s paintings and drawings have been widely exhibited,
both nationally and internationally. In 1994, the Institute of
Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania organized a
traveling exhibition, José Bedia: De Donde Vengo, which was
also shown at the Center for the Fine Arts, Miami, and the
Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego. Solo shows of his
work have also been held at the Joslyn Museum, Omaha; the
Tamayo Museum, Mexico City; and the Museo de Arte
Contemporanéo, Monterrey, Mexico. The recipient of the Cintas
Foundation Fellowship and the Guggenheim Memorial
Foundation Grant, Bedia is represented in numerous museum
collections, including the Miami Art Museum; The Museum of
Modern Art, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los
Angeles; Tate Modern, London; and the Museo Nacional de
Bellas Artes, Havana.
Bedia’s deeply spiritual art reflects his experience and worldview
as an initiate of the Afro-Cuban religion, Palo Monte, and has also
been enriched by the ancient belief systems of Native American
culture. Bedia interweaves the myths, rituals and symbols of
these indigenous faiths in his fable-like narratives, in which
humans and animals share the same spirit, and the human and
spirit worlds are closely connected. Populated by elongated,
sometimes fantastical human and animal forms, Bedia’s paintings
and drawings reflect both personal and universal meanings.
He often portrays the common man in his passage through life,
and also explores the intersection between the spiritual, "primitive"
third-world cultures and the "modern," material, industrialized
world. Crossing the boundaries between ancient and modern,
the spiritual and physical, and nature and culture, Bedia’s art
is global in its scope and meaning.
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