Entre Blow y Flow: A Jazz Provocation
The Visual Artists Association of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (Uneac) has opened the exhibition Entre blow y flow as part of the 41st edition of the International Jazz Plaza Festival 2026.
Running from Sunday, January 25, through February 1, the exhibition presents audiences with a highly personal vision by 19 artists from different generations, each inspired by a single jazz piece. It perhaps alludes to a familiar truth: that creators often find their deepest inspiration while listening to music, noted Janette Brossard, president of Uneac’s Visual Artists Association.
“Many of the works we create contain something of that experience, even if only in the colors,” Brossard explained. “In this case, we wanted to spark the creation of a concrete image starting from a jazz piece. I think it is a very beautiful exhibition, which will later travel to the Villena Hall.” Brossard curated Entre blow y flow together with Ana Beatriz Almeida, a specialist at the Villa Manuela Gallery.
The exhibition brings together works by leading visual artists such as Frank Martínez, Zaida del Río, Andy Rivero, Carlos del Toro, and Manuel López Oliva, along with Ibrahim Miranda, Lisette Solórzano, Enrique Báster, Adrián Socorro, Ramiro Zardoyas, Ángel Ramírez, Harold López, Reinaldo Cid, Julia Valdés, and Brossard herself.
Another participating painter, José Omar Torres, explained that his piece—an acrylic on cardboard—is based on a work by his former teacher and classmate at the National Art School, maestro Joaquín Betancourt, titled Sueños del pequeño Quin.
For her part, Diana Balboa selected, from among several possibilities, a piece by Pablo Menéndez, an outstanding musician, a leading figure in Cuban jazz, and director of the group Mezcla. In him, she highlights “a man who is infinite in the way he approaches art and creation.”
Her resulting work is a collograph that incorporates a collage of the musical score for the melody Menéndez himself sent her. At the same time, it reflects her conviction—shaped by many years of close collaboration with singer-songwriter Sara González—that image and music must always go hand in hand.
Within this same creative dialogue, where visual arts and music converge, Alejandro Lescay not only reveals a deep personal affinity with music—his brothers are jazz musicians—but also drew inspiration from the founder of the Jazz Plaza Festival, Bobby Carcassés, to create a mixed-media piece based on the work Arián.
Using figuration through scratchboard techniques alongside abstraction, Lescay explained, he reinterpreted an instrumental piece by imagining Arián as a woman, since Carcassés has never revealed the true meaning behind the name.
Improvisation, contemporary art, and a rich, diverse visual language form the leitmotif of this collective exhibition. The works draw explicitly and unapologetically from music—some guided by blow, others by flow, and still others by both. In every case, the artists find in each session a reason to reframe jazz within another tangible, visible space: that of the visual arts.
Translated by Luis E. Amador Dominguez
Photos: Agencia Cubana de Noticias
