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 VICTOR DELGADO MARRERO began his profesional career with “Blickenderfer Studios”, Photography Department, in New York City, United States. In 1976 he was contracted as a photographer by several prestigious international publications (National Geographic, Geomundo, Cosmopolitan in Spanish, Vanidades, Art World, and others), marking the start of a very successful trajectory in the world of Photography. In 1980 he relocated to Mexico City as Photography Director of Editorial Televisa, S.A. His artistic talents ––evident since childhood–– led him several years later to experiment with paint as a medium of expression, and with ceramics and sculpture as well, applying novel media and techniques that have provided him with critical acclaim among contemporary artists. “I believe that my transition to painting occurred naturally during my artistic career”, he explains. “For many years I photographed the intimate surroundings of several painters and sculptors, who are my friends to this day…. mostly from Latin America… and painting fascinated me then… most likely, it began to obsess me. I faced my first blank canvas with the apprehension all artists feel… but I felt comfortable realizing images that no doubt were unexplored fantasies of mine, some of them from my most early childhood. That was the genesis of my early works… self-taught… And then, in 1996 I auctioned three of my paintings in the United States, and received favorable reviews from the critics. I felt that I had found my path in the art world, and I followed my instincts, always exploring different media.” If there is a characteristic in Victor Delgado Marrero’s work that differentiates him from other contemporary artists is his predilection for color and texture. “Color is part of me… probably because I was born in Cuba, where I grew up surrounded by color, which acquires a very special dimension with the lights and shadows of the Caribbean. Space has always dominated my fantasies… and the sea and the fish are a constant in my work, perhaps because as a youngster, in the town where I grew up, the fishermen were my first friends, and they often took me along on their fishing expeditions”. His need for experimentation and exploration with a variety of media inevitably led him to work with ceramics and wood, and most recently, bronze. “I do not know which medium is best suited to realize the images that have not yet fully formed in my mind. Ceramics and wood allow me to work with the most basic elements… and this quality inspires me in a very special way… I think it does to every artist. Bronze represents permanence… the definitive expression… to transcend. Curiously, it is in this medium that the traditions of my native country, buried deep within my subconscious, come to the surface. That was my experience with “Chango” and “Obba”, sculptures evoking African deities morphed into Catholic religious icons”. Delgado Marrero was born in Jaronu, Camaguey Province, Cuba. He studied at the “Colegio La Salle” (Havana), in the “Parsons School of Arts and Design” and in the “New York Institute of Photography” (New York). |
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