Nereida Garcia-Ferraz: Exploring Identity Through Art
INTERVIEW BY ELLIOT & ERICK JIMÉNEZ
Portrait of Nereida Garcia-Ferraz by Elliot & Erick Jiménez
Walking through the Miami Design District one early Spring morning, we passed by a sun drenched studio filled with windows. Perfectly spaced across the front window facade read the word N-E-R-E-I-D-A in white. As we stepped inside Nereida Garcia-Ferraz’s artist studio, we were immediately welcomed by the tunes of Ibeyi. Their song Oya echoed in the background while the rich aroma of Cuban coffee permeated the room. Nereida's presence instantly felt like coming home – she is familiar, as warm and inviting as her paintings neatly hanging throughout the bright space. At first sight we were bewitched by them. The works, much like Nereida, are a conduit of her affection and representative of the fusion of Cuban spiritual heritage and identity. Something we immediately connected with as Cubans. Needless to say, our connection to Nereida was immediate. The exchange we had experienced that day stayed with us. Her work is an intimate reveal into her origins and the universal elements that weave through her life: love, history, spirituality, and memory. Each piece is like a map that guides its viewer into her inner world. Her creations are deeply rooted in the Caribbean spirit yet distinctly Nereida – they’re explorations of her queer identity, her boundless curiosity, her mystical connections with the universe, and her belief in the interconnectedness of all life.
Nereida was born in Havana, Cuba in 1954, emigrated to Chicago at the age of 16, and since 2001 has made Miami her home. Her work is part of the collections of Jorge Pérez’s El Espacio 23, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art.
Nereida Garcia-Ferraz installation view from De Noche, Los Sueños: 1983-2023 at Spinello Projects. Photo by Michael Lopez, Courtesy of Spinello Projects.
Elliot & Erick Jimenez: Getting to spend time with you and see your process is something special, so let’s start from the beginning. When was your first introduction to painting, we believe you mentioned starting out in photography? We know you for your paintings and as photographers who are inspired by painting, we find this fascinating.
Nereida Garcia-Ferraz: Thank you both, I began my studies with basic drawing and painting classes but my attention went to the history of independent cinema, independent video making and photography. I wanted to learn the history, to learn about the visionary, the pioneers. I happened to have great teachers like Stan Brakage, Barbara Crane, and Ken Josepso. I would take portraits of Latinos in the city and spent time promoting Latino cinema around the communities in Humboldt Park, hoping to advance and recognize other identity models outside the mainstream. I would also photograph my family in Cuba. Bringing images back and forth between political lines and families separated by cold war and political oppositions. After class at night, I would go home and get large pieces of white paper and make drawings. Large format drawings made with oil sticks, or using the paint directly from the tubes of oils and that gave me permission to explore my own vision. Combining text and images. To this day I still keep doing black and white photography.
Nereida Garcia-Ferraz installation view from De Noche, Los Sueños: 1983-2023 at Spinello Projects. Photo by Michael Lopez, Courtesy of Spinello Projects.
Nereida Garcia-Ferraz installation view of El Universo Así from De Noche, Los Sueños: 1983-2023 at Spinello Projects. Photo by Michael Lopez, Courtesy of Spinello Projects.
E&E: You’ve been around some prominent figures in the Cuban art world, particularly Ana Mendieta. How did she and her work influence you?
NGF: Yes, I understood early on that I needed to be honest about my ideas and images, and it was very empowering to meet other women artists at that time like Ana Mendieta, with whom I became instant friends with. She showed me her earth-body works and it reframed all my views about body art and identity. We both had grandmothers in Cuba and were very aware of the confrontations that were part of traveling back to the island and we connected over that.
E&E: When did you first arrive in the United States? How was the process of adjusting to a new environment and overall culture like and did this experience shape you as an artist?
NGF: When my family and I arrived in Chicago in 1971, we had nothing, just our small suitcases and no idea about what was going to be our life in the city. My mother had to stay behind in Havana with my younger sister. My father was a musician and he did not want to stay in Miami. So Chicago was his choice. My older sister and I took minimum wage jobs to help out at first. My sister had spent all her childhood learning ballet in Havana and I had just finished 10th grade. In Chicago, survival was our priority to create a place to live. We found a place in Roger’s Park on the north side of the city and my mother came four months after. I knew who I was and perhaps under other circumstances I could have become a writer. I loved reading and it was always my way of escaping. I found a college very close to the apartment we lived in. It was called Mundelein College and was a Catholic school with a wonderful library. I would go there in the afternoon and read art history and learn about visual artists and their practice. I basically educated myself enough to feel like I could put together a portfolio of drawings to submit to art school. Friends of my family will see me doing this and thought I was so impractical and delusional for wanting to be an artist. It took me two years to organize the work and apply to school. Then in 1976 I was admitted to the Art Institute of Chicago and my life took a complete turn. I learned about Cuban art history from books in that library, I learned about Wifredo Lam, Antonia Eiriz and most of the vanguard Cuban painters of the 40’s and 50’s.
“it was very empowering to meet other women artists at that time like Ana Mendieta, with whom I became instant friends with. She showed me her earth-body works and it reframed all my views about body art and identity.”
E&E: Color was one of the first things we noticed along the surreal-like figures within your paintings, taking different shapes and identities. You also include text within your work. What do they all represent?
NGF: To me, the text and the images, color, the way the paint is applied, and the choosing of a phrase is all part of my identity. My work became highly personal, idiosyncratic and most of all it became my voice. I always had discipline in my practice and a great desire for connecting my hands with the stories that were inside me; my paintings became intimate and colorful because of it. I use text in many of them to draw the viewers into my story. I use words in Spanish and it is up to the viewers to discover them within the works.
E&E: You’ve also mentioned some of your pieces reference past lovers at the time.
NGF: My paintings are always part of my personal history. I have written love notes, recreated a moment of painful separation or declared my love to women in many of my drawings and paintings for many years. I’m not afraid of coloring within these themes. In some paintings, these messages are hidden and it takes someone who pays close attention to details to find them.
Nereida Garcia-Ferraz installation view from De Noche, Los Sueños: 1983-2023 at Spinello Projects. Photo by Michael Lopez, Courtesy of Spinello Projects.
E&E: How has the rich cultural heritage of Cuban spirituality within Lucumí or Santeria influenced your artistic journey? We've observed that while we explore similar themes of spirituality in our work as Cuban-American artists, your approach seems to delve into these themes in a more nuanced manner.
NGF: My spirituality is a big part of the work, painting animals, birds, goats, and tools, without making it obvious. I had a period where I dedicated my paintings to Yoruba deities. I painted Obatala in 2001, and Ochun for many years, each on the eighth of September, Ochun’s day. In my paintings, the color blue almost always is for Yemaya. I grew up among people that were believers, not in my family but in my school, spirituality was all around me growing up in Guanabacoa. Early on my faith was beyond the Catholic upbringing we had in the house. I was very curious and found on some occasions signs of other powers, ways to become and pay attention to signs in my ‘caminos’ or paths. I took all these experiences and later on in life there were moments I needed to delve deeply into these signs. That to me is an unavoidable part of my Cubanidad. There is always a risk when you work paying attention to higher deities. To me, the text and the images, color, the way the paint is applied and the choosing of a phrase is all part of that spiritual intention as well.
“we are more capable of breaking through society’s glass ceiling with our united strength.”
E&E: You recently had a 40 year survey of your work exhibiting at Spinello Projects in Miami late last year titled De Noche Los Sueños: 1983-2023; that’s quite a milestone. You exhibited both works on paper and canvas, what was the process of deciding which works to show? Is there a preference or time period in your art that you’re most attached to?
NGF: The survey at Spinello Projects of my 40 year career was carefully curated by Anthony Spinello, an expert in contemporary art. It was a tedious process going through the timeline, there are a lot of works from different periods in my life. We are talking about an extended period from the late 1980’s until now. It was Interesting to see how the works follow the themes that were there during the time I created them and how these ideas took new turns in each period and evolved into other more complex ideas as time went by. I love all the pieces I have created, each one carries the curiosity, the vulnerability and the power of memory and spiritual life. Painting has been a tool for me to explore and confront identity and gender, displacement and ideas about the body and homeland.
Nereida Garcia-Ferraz installation view from De Noche, Los Sueños: 1983-2023 at Spinello Projects. Photo by Michael Lopez, Courtesy of Spinello Projects.
Nereida Garcia-Ferraz installation view of Quien Sabe Lo Que Pasa Allá Arriba from De Noche, Los Sueños: 1983-2023 at Spinello Projects. Photo by Michael Lopez, Courtesy of Spinello Projects.
E&E: There is something mysterious and personal about your pieces, almost like a thin veil of magic, transparent and vulnerable enough for the viewer to decipher. Almost as if inviting us to finish your story.
NGF: I try to leave the paintings open, they all have an entrance and starting point where the eye meets the surface of the materials it goes on. These works always come around with new readings. Almost the way life changes in surprising ways. Some drawings from the 80’s were almost like Spanish tarot readings. My grandmother was a seer and she was always able to foresee what was coming next, it was so powerful. My work in some ways reflects that, like a reading through my work, looking for clues and allowing the hand and the materials to speak to the viewer. Much like a card reader would do. I have drawn and painted every turn in my life, it has been a constant place for reflection and projection.
E&E: We’ve noticed you sometimes paint then repaint over your paintings, almost as if a ritual where you’re consecrating the piece. Is this something you’ve always done when approaching your work? How do you decide when to encrypt a piece with this method?
NGF: You notice something that I seldom address to people, the way I infuse the paintings with images that get repainted over, sort of a way to build the work or dressing the works with iconography that adds an even bigger role to the process of applying color. I can discuss more about this with you later; amazing that you noticed!
E&E: You have an upcoming solo presentation at Expo Chicago with Spinello Projects, which will include a booth of new works. In these new works we see a large grouping of people with hidden symbolisms around them, in particular, scenes of extended ropes, rows of cowrie shells, and even braids going across the paintings. Can you share more about this new series?
NGF: The symbolism I'm using in most of my recent works, particularly the ones for Chicago, largely revolve around themes of protection and strength. The groups of figures are reaching for each other, but also falling into one another. They are always seeking to unite, through their hair and even through the symbols of these seashells, together, we are more capable of breaking through society’s glass ceiling with our united strength.
Nereida Garcia-Ferraz installation view of Algo Que Se Parece Al Olvido from De Noche, Los Sueños: 1983-2023 at Spinello Projects. Photo by Michael Lopez, Courtesy of Spinello Projects.
“Through this new body of work, I express sentiments of protection and defense against the perils of forgetfulness and orphanhood through various visual motifs.”
E&E: These new works feel different from some of your previous pieces, yet still familiar to your oeuvre. Is there a new feeling or conversation you’re looking to evoke from these?
NGF: Through this new body of work, I express sentiments of protection and defense against the perils of forgetfulness and orphanhood through various visual motifs. These include braids emerging from the mother's breasts, candles, and divination shells, symbolizing a journey towards inner strength. These artworks transcend surface appearances, delving into uncharted narratives. They serve as roots, tapping into our energy to yield harvests of understanding, offer and receive protection. It's as though nurturing inner growth beckons us to explore mysteries and confront adversity.
E&E: What’s next for Nereida?
NGF: More work, painting to me is a life line, an encounter with materials and a mirror to the sky.
Elliot & Erick Jiménez
Identical twins and first generation Cuban-Americans, Elliot & Erick Jiménez were born and raised in Miami by Cuban immigrants and now reside in New York. Their photographic practice began from an early passion for art history and influences derived from a theological upbringing, exploring the mysticism of gods in mythology, Yoruba and Catholic syncretic elements.
Inspired by paintings, their work portrays the ephemeral nature of light and color through experimental camera techniques and the composition of their subjects, often rendering them like paintings. Capturing enigmatic images at the intersection of contemporary art and fashion, Elliot & Erick have developed a personal approach to photography that is meticulously constructed by concept and chromatic arrangements.
Elliot & Erick’s work has been exhibited throughout the United States and Europe. Solo exhibitions of their work have been presented at Spinello Projects, Entre Dos Mundos/Between Two Worlds (2022), Paris Photo (2022), and PHOTOFAIRS New York (2023). Group museum exhibitions include Open Storage (2022) at the Bass Museum, Miami, The Florida Prize (2023) at the Orlando Museum of Art, and Surrealism & Us (2024) at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.