CHARLESTON, SC.- The Gibbes Museum of Art announced its exhibition featuring the vibrant narrative paintings of Reynier Llanes, an established Cuban artist who spent six years working in Charleston before settling in Miami in 2015. Reynier Llanes: Passages is on view in the museum’s third-floor galleries from May 24 – Sept. 15, 2024.
“We were first introduced to Reynier Llanes’ work when he was awarded the Artist in Residence position at Jonathan Green Studios. For six years, Charleston’s art and cultural community served as inspiration to Reynier, and we are thrilled to welcome him back to our city,” says Angela Mack, president and CEO of the Gibbes Museum of Art. “This exhibition will feature works that he made while living in Charleston and will also introduce the community to many of his latest creations.”
Llanes, born in 1985 in Pinar del Rio, Cuba, honed his artistic talents at the city’s School of Art (Instructores de Arte) under the coaching of renowned realist artist Juan Miguel Suárez before moving to Havana in 2005 to continue his studies. Immigrating to the United States in 2007, Llanes established himself as a prominent artist with exhibitions like Strange Visitor in Naples, Fla., and an artist residency at Jonathan Green Studios in Charleston. Recognized by Oxford American in 2012 as a "New Superstar of Southern Art," Llanes's work, deeply influenced by Southern culture, was featured in a traveling exhibition, The Vibrant Vision Collection, at the Morris Museum in Augusta, Ga. and the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston. With notable solo exhibitions at institutions such as the Butler Institute of American Art and the Polk Museum of Art, Llanes' art now resides in the permanent collections of renowned museums across the country.
Reynier Llanes: Passages features several of the artist’s recent large-scale oil paintings, as well as works from earlier in his career including examples of his unique coffee watercolor paintings – a style he has dubbed “Espressionism.” Llanes combines and contrasts scenes from nature and daily life with a mystical and imaginative elegance. Drawing from his own memories and experience as an artist and immigrant, as well as his studies of literature, history and science, Llanes invites viewers into his unique dreamworlds. His explorations of personal and societal passages, both physical and spiritual, sensitively communicate common threads in humanity. This exhibition is organized by the Gibbes Museum of Art and is made possible by generous sponsors BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina, Lynch Cracraft Wealth Management of Raymond James, Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation and the Jane Smith Turner Foundation.
