Collage Habana Gallery Presents Yo fui mi peor abismo by Jesús Lara Sotelo
Collage Habana Gallery is currently hosting Yo fui mi peor abismo, a solo exhibition by Cuban artist Jesús Lara Sotelo that offers a retrospective journey through his 36-year creative career.
The exhibition features a carefully curated selection of works across multiple media — painting, sculpture, installation, ceramics, and printmaking — revealing the profound evolution of an artist who has turned art into a path of personal redemption, existential inquiry, and spiritual healing.
Curated by Maybel Elena Martínez and Piter Ortega, the show highlights the confessional, visceral, and transdisciplinary nature of a body of work that serves as both an intimate testimony and a collective mirror.
“Few artists have transformed their own biography into such a raw, burning, tangible substance as Jesús Lara Sotelo,” says Ortega. “His life has been a crater, and from that crater he has extracted not only lava but also light.”
Also known for his work as a poet and musician, Lara Sotelo offers here a cartography of the soul — its fractures, its beauty, its quest. In the artist’s own words:
“What you’ll see here is the architecture of that descent: ceramics that whisper, prints that bleed, poems that refuse to surrender, music hanging by a thread. And at the center, not a hero or a martyr, but a body in flames.”
The exhibition will remain open to the public through September. Among the related events is the literary colloquium El ojo que sangra luz on Thursday, July 24 at 11:00 a.m., where the aphorism collection of the same name will be presented by art critic and curator Nelson Herrera Ysla. Additional works by Lara Sotelo will be discussed by professor, poet, and critic Virgilio López Lemus and by editor, poet, and writer Alberto Marrero.
On Thursday, August 31, the first launch of Lara Sotelo’s musical project La sinfonía de lo eterno will take place, featuring commentary by musicologist and researcher Camila López, who will present a retrospective of the artist’s latest albums and singles — a compelling fusion of art, poetry, and contemporary rhythms.
Translated by Luis E. Amador Dominguez
