ART ON THE NET: The creative hand

This is the recreation of the hand of the sculptor himself. Juan Francisco Elso Padilla… is then the hand of an artist, hired hand, hand that illuminates.

Juan Francisco Elso Padilla (1956-1988) died very young… and perhaps that’s the reason why he left some unfinished projects. This hand would be part of a larger body, a great metaphor on man and the cosmos. The hand remained, since it is the original tool.

This is a recreation of the hand of the sculptor himself… it is then the hand of an artist.

This hand might build a world… and those foundational boosts usually materialize themselves in hard exercises. That’s why, it seems injured. And dry leaves sprout from its cuts, rather than blood, and this could well be assumed as a symbol of the extinct life… that has left its mark.

The sculptor bets on a moving simplicity: it’s just a hand, its lines and incisions: the essentiality that summarizes everything, should we strive to find the keys of the universe. A particle was the beginning of everything.

Juan Francisco Elso Padilla: The creative hand, 1988. 137 x 192 x 46 cm. Contemporary Art Collection (1979-1996) of the National Museum of Fine Arts, Havana, Cuba.

Translated by Jorge Mesa Benjamin / CubaSi Translation Staff