Felipe Alarcón Echenique

Felipe Alarcón Echenique is a Cuban painter, printmaker, draughtsman and writer who has lived in Madrid for decades. Trained at the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts and the José Varona Higher Institute of Art, he began his teaching career in the 1980s but soon devoted his creative energy to painting and printmaking. His work is distinguished by a figurative style with surreal and baroque touches, in which symbols, fragmented narratives and a collage-like aesthetic coexist. He uses mixed techniques and unconventional materials, such as coffee and wine, to give his pieces a unique texture charged with memory and everyday life. He usually works in thematic series that explore historical, social and personal subjects, among them "Crónicas Milenarias", devoted to key episodes in history; "Crónicas del Terror", inspired by the 11-M attacks in Madrid; and "Muñecas de papel", focused on the representation of women. More recently he has paid tribute to Salvador Dalí and Picasso, reinterpreting their legacy in a mestizo, contemporary language. Combining a poetic gaze with social criticism, as in the touring exhibition "Arte para la Paz" in Extremadura, which evoked the memory of conflicts and highlighted the role of women in war, he presented "Picasso Mestizo" in Trujillo in 2023 to notable acclaim. With a diverse, symbol-laden body of work, he has established himself as a modern visual storyteller, bridging the oneiric and the historical, the intimate and the collective.