Osy Milián: Mimesis, exercise, concept A race on the rise
While checking on the career of young Cuban artist Osy Milian (Havana, 1992), two basic moments or stages meet the eye: 2006-2008 and 2009 to date. In the first period, her interest was basically focused on the technique development, with less significance on the order of her ideas. Her works were mostly genre paintings: seascapes and still nature dominated by the principle of mimesis –perceptive equivalences or optical duplications related to the real reference– and in which the handling of textures, chiaroscuro, perspective and chromatic hues were the name of the game. Those were mainly learning exercises toward the mastering of the trade –which is pretty logical for any artist in his or her starting point. Individual exhibitions like Not Far from the Sea (Ismaelillo Gallery, Jose Marti National Library, Havana, 2006) and The Volume of the Fertile (Carmen Montilla Gallery, Havana, 2008) are excellent cases in point.
A clear-cut qualitative leap takes place in the second stage in this artist’s creation, based on a series of highly pop-oriented works in which the creator runs definitively away from the orthodox academicism and the recreation of the real just to acquire more in synthesis and formal depuration, in drawing skills and abilities. She’s from that moment onward expressing herself mainly in plain, dark colors, her works featuring tremendous cleanness and impact, let alone well-defined contrasts among complements. In the same breath, clear influence from the Asian arts can be seen, especially of the esthetic mangas. This set of pieces stands probably for the pinnacle of her short, yet meritorious career. It would be decisive if they could be showcased to the public as part of the individual exhibition that will gather them all. Osy should think for a while in that. Some flagship artworks in that series are Bon Appétit (2010), You and Me (2010) and All You Need Is Love (2010). The two latter are part of the collective exhibit entitled The Goose that Lays the Golden Eggs, displayed last April at the Jose Marti National.
Then came, also within that same second period or stage, a series in which the artist is currently working on and that makes up her most recent individual exhibition: Fragile (Ambos Mundos Hotel, Havana, May-June 2010). Among the most valuable artworks in this collection, Blue Ladder, Menarchy, Self Gratification and Roxanne stand out. This time around, she’s boasting intellectual come of age. In addition to the aforesaid formal values –except for the fact that colors are no longer that plain and figures have been whipped into volumetric shapes– the paintings that conform this exposition showcase in-depth analysis of the topics: the complex universe of adolescence with its sexual-erotic, psychosocial and inter-subjective trappings. There are topics linked to drugs, alcoholism, women’s first menstruation, the dependency and alienation generated the fetish-objects from the entertainment world, child molestation, among other things, all of them treated with admirable maturity. Thus, the author is profoundly concerned by both the scope and sense of her words, by the attractiveness and value of her proposal. And that’s pretty encouraging, especially if we bear in mind that it’s barely an 18-year-old youngster we’re talking about and who’s still studying at the San Alejandro Academy.
Hopefully she’ll hold on tight to her upward path. Those of us who know her well and are very much aware of her restless and rebel spirit, know for sure that she’ll never be pleased with the boundaries of her paintings, with the two-dimensional surface, and she’ll surely indulge herself into new esthetic adventures, either in the form of sculpturing installations, procedural action arts or videos. And we also know that she’ll reap far more awards and recognitions, like the ones she proudly has won up to now: the UNESCO Award at the 14th International Children’s Painting Biennial in Japan’s Kanagawa back in 2007 and the First Prize at the International AEWA Contest in Germany’s Bonn, also in 2007. Let’s just wait and see…
Havana, June 2010
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