Thread the Needle
By Estela Ferrer
It could be said that in some reincarnation a dead tailor lives inside him if we were to be faithful to the Cuban Yoruba tradition. However, his predilection for sewing comes from his childhood, when he watched his grandmother spend hours and hours in that work. A memory of the past that the artist Victor Manuel Maden Morgan has been able to take advantage of very well, to give body and tone to his pictorial works. In his hands, the expressive possibilities of jute are infinite, whether to delve into issues that constitute metaphysical inquiries or others that respond to particular areas of the social environment, not only from the religious, but in the daily construction of everyday life.
Víctor Maden is an artist from Cárdenas who has bet on the genesis of life and the different cultural heritages that are present in Cuba. His is a production that has been rightly called mestizo due to the fusion of these legacies and also the presence of symbols that allude to the aboriginal culture.
It is possible that it is precisely the dual nature of his work that has aroused the greatest curiosity among his contemporaries. His mobility between the modern and the traditional, between the abstract and the figurative, he enjoys exploring the primitive, the roots, the pure painting and now with equal fluency he delves into the social. For this reason, one of his most recent series, En tiempos negros (In Black Times), stops on a tired island, which returns over and over again on its axis as part of an endless loop, but which continues to be full of nuances precisely because of its contradictions and multiple circumstances. In this series, the psychology of color or its absence is a determining factor in the discourse on social contrasts.
The selection of materials such as paper, cardboard, reused wood, fabrics, snails, conjure over his production an aura of the transcendent, even the sacred. The organic character that animates the whole is evident in the fusion between metal and burlap, complementing each other from the smooth texture of one and the arid texture of the other. The burlap is offered as an ideal background where the heavy icons, faces and figures to which the artist submits us rest.
Special mention should be made of a set of original symbols, circles like offerings that favor the inner rhythm of the pieces, taking the visuality to an accomplished step without the need for artifice or accommodation. The crosses and crises, even in their own semantic relationship, engage in dialogue and the clock, sometimes fragmented into simple lines, shown in its entirety or barely sketched, brings the viewer to its historical moment. It forces him to stop.
The doodle also appears as in his piece awarded at the Salón de la Ciudad Keep Out, where his discourse, although current, resorts to the great theme of his creations, which is the evolution of human creation. That is why knives flow and wander through his canvases, and the use of letters is frequent. This graphism is used as a trace of the same patakí, of the history that underlies each sign. The writing is not only trace and color, it is the bearer of form, energy and testimony.
As he travels along the path of creation, the white begins to appear in his works as a mixture, the transition towards the necessary harmony, to the point of flirting with the abstract. Maden knows that in all analysis and replication of a social thought there are two paths or more.
Since 2011, a long road has been traveled. Although the legacies of previous cultures and cave iconography continue to be used, the visual leap is unquestionable. The figures have been refined to the point of almost disappearing, giving space to lines and abstraction, or being the center of attention only a character’s face; the ocher tonality is maintained, but black and white gain prominence. The descriptive is replaced by the metaphorical, but yes, the support materials, the presence of the fabric encourage each finish and structure. To the shadow and to the light I leave him now, because in his studio all energies coexist, waiting to see his next creations where again his hands will thread the needle.
