Gabriel Sanchez is a 30-year-old Cuban-American artist born in Miami, Florida. He received his
Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Sanchez's recent
paintings focus on Cuban current events, politics, and daily life, as seen through the lens of
portraiture. He uses his artwork to explore how proximity and union, ever-present aspects of
Cuban society, inform notions of solitude and intimacy.
Sanchez's oil paintings are carefully rendered with classical technique, and his use of realism
produces an "authentic and inescapable illusion of existence" that brings the viewer into a
closer relationship with his subject. His work captures the warm yet stoic nature of Cuban
culture, reminding the world of what has been lost. Sanchez excels at creating scenes of
togetherness and social unity, using portraiture as a means to make visible the contemporary
reality of Cuban citizens.
His recent solo exhibition, “Silencio" at Luis De Jesus Los Angeles, documents the artist’s
creative contemporaries with inquisitiveness and sensitivity. The exhibition is an empowering
portrayal of a generation stripped bare of garb and fable in order to redefine an abstruse reality.
Sanchez's painted subjects include artists, writers, photographers, dancers, and opera singers
living and working in Cuba, many of whom are openly gay in a country that stifles LGBTQ
expression, yet are willing to tell their stories through his paintings.
Sanchez's work captures the vulnerability, strength, and spirit of the Cuban people, rendering
the humanity of Cubans with tenderness. He captures the angst of being young and in Cuba
and presents a warm, understandable exhibition where portraits tell the story. His paintings
recreate moments and situations in life that we might encounter, and his current project works
in dialogue with Cuban culture. Each painting is a small scene of the events that happen daily.