Manikin

Already around 2004-2005, Lara has turned the landscape into a symbol, an expressive icon of the highest tension, in which she has emptied, as in a catharsis, not only her own existential anguish but also the contradictory and torn testimony of his time. It is evident how explicit the message is of deep emotion that allows us to penetrate, through a display of visual elements of remarkable richness, a historical conscience, so important to understand the Cuban art of this period.
We are talking about a revolutionary proposal, based on codes and budgets that have nothing to do with trends, styles or currents of the artistic legacy. Filtering and unifying influences, Lara’s identity exists with as much security as restraint. However, there does not seem to be any dependency, except with the most intimate obsessions that nourish her pictorial universe with her symbols.
And speaking of atmospheric effects, in a piece like Humidity, Lara’s landscape has been filled with very romantic light that deeply illuminates the environmental elements and generates a kind of mist that seems to spread through the atmosphere. The brushwork is very characteristic, free, lively and full of expressiveness, the colors are aggressive with infrequent contrasts −yellow on orange− that seem to convey a state of mind. Perhaps this is not the country landscape that we are used to seeing when talking about the native. Nor does it constitute a visuality that fits into our traditional landscape models.
Lara brings a more universal language to tradition. Instead of transferring foreign elements to the Cuban landscape, he reverts the latter to a more generic visuality without losing what he identifies us as islanders. Humidity presents a felled tree in the foreground, a second given by the slenderness of a corroded trunk, while the transparency of the water in the background reflects the foliage that completes the rest of the composition. Where do we find the tropicalization of the vernacular and why this distancing from the insular?

Lara’s proposal reaffirms a more analytical and controversial conception of the landscape genre, approaching the surrounding reality and the universal problems that concern man, assumed from a contemporary perspective. The renewal of poetics is given by an essential element: the artist understands the guidelines of his time and before being a sheep of a society that prescribes itself, he opts for the decolonization of the gaze as banners of a culture that does not distinguish the differences between what can and should change and what cannot change, because it is unchangeable.

 

Ya sobre el 2004-2005, Lara ha convertido el paisaje en un símbolo, en un ícono expresivo de la más alta tensión, en el que ha vaciado, como en una catarsis, no sólo su propia angustia existencial sino el testimonio contradictorio y desgarrado de su época. Es evidente lo explícito del mensaje de una profunda emotividad que permite penetrar, a través de un despliegue de elementos visuales de notable riqueza, en una conciencia histórica, tan importante para comprender la plástica cubana de este periodo.
Estamos hablando de una propuesta revolucionaria, basada en códigos y presupuestos que nada tienen que ver con tendencias, estilos o corrientes del legado artístico. Filtrando y unificando las influencias, la identidad de Lara existe con tanta seguridad como moderación. Sin embargo, no parece verificarse ninguna dependencia, como no sea con las más íntimas obsesiones que nutren de símbolos su universo pictórico.
Lara le aporta a la tradición un lenguaje más universal. En lugar de traspolar los elementos foráneos al paisaje cubano, revierte estos últimos a una visualidad más genérica sin llegar a perder aquello que nos identifica como isleños.

La propuesta de Lara reafirma una concepción más analítica y controversial sobre el género paisaje, de acercamiento a la realidad circundante y a los problemas universales que atañen al hombre, asumidos con una óptica contemporánea. La renovación de la poética viene dada por un elemento esencial: el artista comprende las directrices de su tiempo y antes de ser oveja de una sociedad que se preescribe, opta por la descolonización de la mirada como estandartes de una cultura que no distingue las diferencias entre lo que puede y debe cambiar y lo que no puede variar, porque es inmodificable.