The granting to the National Arts Award Manuel Mendive Hoyo (Havana, 1944), the status of Doctor Honoris Causa of the Arts University in the Magna Classroom of the institution, is the recognition of the national culture, African influence, since the very essence of creation. Great Cuban painter, with a strong expression of the African roots, especially the Yoruba pantheon, the artist mixes different techniques, styles and colors, and textures on different media. Canvas, wood, fur animals and even the human body itself, will serve to release this extraordinary creativity of his myths and pictorial narratives.
With just eleven, he was awarded in a children's painting competition in Japan and has subsequently received numerous awards such as the National Drawing; the Hall of May; the Second International Painting Festival Cagnes-sur-Mer (France, 1970); the Alejo Carpentier Medal of the State Council of the Cuba Republic (Havana, 1988); the National Prize for Plastic Arts (Havana, 2001), and the Five Continents medal of UNESCO, (2009).
Mendive is one of the most recognized and restless artists of his generation and of Cuban culture, stands out in the panorama of the visual arts in Cuba not only for his intense production in different disciplines, but for their particular approach of myths and popular religion on the island, especially the stories and traditions from the African roots of our culture.
Fruitful creative life of this painter, sculptor, printmaker, instalacionista and artist of the Cuban performance and therefore the Arts University recognizes the unquestionable value of the work of this creator, his dedication to the reconstruction and reinterpretation of the world of orishas, mestizo condition of Cuban identity and the relationship between man and nature that surrounds him. The performative action in which the painted bodies and sometimes retrace part of city accompanied by the curious fact that approximate and accomplices of culture do reveal the inheritance to which Mendive is loyal.
This artist is rated as one of the most prolific and original in addressing ethnic and religious themes in Cuban visual arts, whose contributions continue the path of creators such as Wifredo Lam and Roberto Diago. Museums and galleries around the world, including major art capitals possess works of this Cuban author, including the John F. Kennedy Centre in Washington and the Museum of Modern Art in Paris.
On the other hand, Mendive is considered a master of experimentation with different materials and media within the field of visual arts. Creative and authentic double condition is revealed in samples and gives leap of faith of his identity and beliefs. Nothing is alien and assumes the human being as infinity from his own figure. So defines the critical Israel Castellanos; has woven stories, roads and interpretations of mythology skin and dark origin, and put it on a variety of media: from the trunk of a palm, the pores of a canvas or cardboard, to highly sensitive and receptive surface of the human body by updating, via body art, the ancient tradition of dance and body makeup and revealing an edge over its multifaceted and prolific universe.
