Jan. 13 - Feb. 12, 2005

M.Y. ART PROSPECTS is pleased to announce the solo exhibition of Jose Luis Farinas - "The Beasts of Chaos."

The nightmares of Bosch and Brueghel return in contemporary form in the grotesque, metamorphosing creatures of Jose Luis Farinas, a Havana-based Cuban painter, draftsman and illustrator. This, his first solo exhibition in New York, features his most recent oil paintings and watercolors.

Myriad faces, hands, feet, wings, and other parts of half-human half-crustacean creatures are connected to and entangled with each other in a mysterious chain of transformation. The resulting fantasies beautify chaos in meticulous detail. The abundant hidden references in his paintings are often taken from the Old Testament or the Kabbalah.

In the 2004 oil paintings "The Inner Life" and "The Beast of Chaos," Farinas evolves from his previous style with bold compositional power and new surface structures. Instead of dispersing his subjects, he emphasizes them with a compressed format and thicker paints. In these paintings, the formerly introverted world of Farinas has gained dynamic force. In his watercolors, Farinas' extraordinary expertise in ultra-fine paintbrush technique can instantly be recognized. More fragmented than his oil paintings, these extremely delicate watercolors each create a miniature universe conveying a palpable sense of infinity.

Jose Luis Farinas was born 1972 to Spanish-Cuban-Jewish parents. His mother, Juana Garcia Abas, received an academic and atelier art education with some of the great Cuban Masters including Antonia Eiriz, Victor Manuel and Martinez Pedro. She began teaching Farinas painting when he was quite young. In 1990, Farinas received his diploma from the Union de Arquitectos de Cuba for oil and mural paintings. In 1991 he graduated with Gold Title from Havana's San Alejandro Academia de Artes Plasticas. Between 1991 and 1995 Farinas majored in painting at the Instituto Superior de Arte, ISA in Havana. He has recently been offered a Cornell Artist Residence by Cornell University for 2005. Farinas has held more than twenty solo exhibitions and participated in group exhibitions both in and out of Cuba. In the United States, he has been exhibited at the Las Americas Denver Museum, the Mizel Museum of Judaica, both in Colorado and the Jewish Community Center of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 2003, M.Y. ART PROSPECTS featured Farinas' paintings in a group show of Cuban artists organized by the Society For Advancement of Latin American Arts, Delray Beach, Florida.

Farinas' work can be found in important museum collections in New York, Denver, Delray Beach and Pittsburgh as well as in many private collections. His work has been published in a number of art and literary magazines and newspapers, including OPUS HABANA, UNION, Art Nexus, Pittsburgh Post and Denver Post. His illustrations appear in many books published by leading Cuban publishing houses.

Jose Luis Farinas is represented by M.Y. ART PROSPECTS, New York.

Small Exhibition Series Vol. 3
Jan. 13 - Feb. 12, 2005

Yumiko Naito, from Hokkaido in northern Japan, likes to photograph mysterious and desolate landscapes. Her recent series, LANDs END, captures the power of such places in Ireland and England. In her photographs, everything on earth - humans, plants, animals, sky, ocean, rocks, clouds - seems to have a soul and all relate to each other in beautiful harmony. In her eyes, these dark places hold bright hopes and nameless anticipation. Almost paradoxically, they invite us with the the heartwarming encouragement of home. (by Kaori Kamisawa)

An exhibition catalog ($10) is available upon request.