Felipe Alarcón Echenique – History, Philosophy, and Artistic Vision

Felipe Alarcón Echenique (Havana, 1966) is a Spanish-Cuban visual artist whose work is distinguished by a deep symbolic and archaeological exploration of memory, myth, and the city. His practice is nourished by a critical and poetic gaze that connects the past with the tensions of the present, building bridges between the individual and the collective, the intimate and the historical.

Since his beginnings in the vibrant Cuban cultural scene of the 1980s, Alarcón has been known for a hybrid aesthetic that intertwines the figurative and the abstract, the sacred and the profane, the classical and the contemporary. His academic training and diverse life experiences — across Cuba, Spain, and Latin America — have shaped a visual language rich in cultural, philosophical, and literary references. Through mixed media, meticulous drawings, assemblages, and pictorial compositions of great symbolic density, his work proposes an introspective journey through inner landscapes and imagined cities.

Alarcón’s artistic philosophy revolves around the notion of the unfinished as an existential metaphor. In series such as The City of Columns or Timeless Biblical Paradises, he addresses themes such as ruin, exile, the fragmentation of time, and the persistence of myths. For him, painting is an act of rescue: a way of excavating layers of memory, the unconscious, and history, restoring their meaning through images that oscillate between the dreamlike and the documentary.

His creative vision is driven by a sensitivity that blends the baroque and the minimalist, the tropical and the urban, the ancestral and the postmodern. Columns, maps, bodies, animals, lost gardens, and ancient scripts are recurring elements that become signs in a search for identity and belonging. Inspired by philosophy, literature, religion, and classical art, as well as by the contemporary reality of cities in transformation, Alarcón constructs a deeply personal visual universe, where each piece functions as a fragment of a broader narrative.

With an international career that includes exhibitions in Cuba, the United States, Mexico, Spain, Denmark, and other European countries, Felipe Alarcón has established a singular voice in contemporary Latin American art. His work engages the viewer through evocation and enigma, offering an aesthetic experience that is both introspective and universal.

Felipe Alarcón Echenique (Havana, 1966) is a Spanish-Cuban artist based in Madrid. His work spans painting, drawing, and installation, exploring themes such as identity, memory, and the cultural history of the Caribbean and Europe. Through a symbolic and expressive language, his creations engage in a dialogue between the ancestral and the contemporary. He has exhibited in Cuba, Spain, the United States, and other countries, building a career marked by introspection and visual strength.

www.f-alarconart.com
@felipealarconoficial
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