YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – An exhibition of works by acclaimed Cuban American artist Julio Larraz will open Sept. 14 at The Butler Institute of American Art and run through Nov. 23.
The exhibit, which is in conjunction with National Hispanic Heritage Month, will be in the MacIntosh Gallery on the second floor.
A previously scheduled artist’s reception has been canceled, according to a press release from the museum.
Larraz’s oil paintings are said to inhabit a realm where reality and imagination converge. With a mastery of light, precision of detail and an undercurrent of wit, Larraz constructs alluring and enigmatic visual narratives.
His compositions often weave together satirical social commentary, poetic symbolism and art-historical allusions.
Drawing on his early career as a political caricaturist for publications such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, Larraz infuses his paintings with sharp observation.
Marine imagery remains a recurrent theme, serving as both a visual signature and a metaphor for exploration, displacement and the subconscious.
As in much of his oeuvre, the works in this exhibition play with spatial ambiguity and juxtaposition, compelling the viewer to reconcile the familiar with the fantastical. The result is a body of work that is intellectually engaging and visually captivating.
Larraz was born in 1944 in Havana, Cuba, and moved to the United States in 1961. By the early 1970s, he dedicated himself entirely to painting, holding his first solo exhibition in Washington, D.C., in 1971. Since then, Larraz has exhibited extensively in the United States, Europe and Latin America. He has received numerous awards from institutions such as the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Center for the Arts and Education in New York.
Larraz lives and works in Miami.
Pictured at top: “A Prayer for Peace” by Julio Larraz.