Un minuto antes de iluminarse (2009), by Alejandro Campíns; oil and acrylic on canvas; 120 x 100 cm. Image courtesy Servando Galeria de Arte

We live a strange sort of anachronistic poetry in Cuba . . . Even if you don’t want it to, this poetry influences what any artist here produces. You live in a house made in the 1950s, you wake up and turn on a brand-new Chinese TV, you go to the street and hop in an American car from the ’40s to get to your friend’s 1920s house. As a result, my painting goes to many different places . . .

There are days when I want to paint about, say, politics and other days when I want nothing to do with it. Sometimes I begin painting a lion and finish with a butterfly . . . I begin painting aggressively, and the finished painting turns out as something sweet.

— Cuban artist Alejandro Campíns, profiled by Julia Cooke in the Summer 2010 issue of Modern Painters (a special issue on “Latin America’s next big stars”). The profile includes a gallery of images of Campíns, his studio, and his paintings. (You can see further examples of his work at the dpm gallery website.)