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Flora Fong

Like a pulsation of tenderness, Flora traipses around this jaunty house with a clear mind. Some prenatal substance has certainly left in her a Chinese blood trace, yet her work boasts the colors and lights of Cuba.

Flora Fong’s participation in the 12th Habano Festival harks back to some clear-cut backgrounds. Since the 1990s, the artist has recurrently worked with Cuba’s nature and, within its boundaries, with tobacco as a theme. “To its leaf, that embraces so much and whose passage through a number of stages makes it turn into so different colors, I’ve dedicated a glimpse in all these years.” Flora is these days exhibiting at the Intl. Conference Center in Havana a beautiful four-piece installation –large PVC panels with the colors and vitality of the tobacco leaf– plus a serigraphy of her work entitled Habano, especially created for the occasion that will be part of the celebration the event’s organizers have planned for the night dedicated to women, a moment that will also feature the launch of the Julieta vitola from the Romeo y Julieta brand. “This painting has a lot to do with the spell of spirituality and meditation the habano casts on smokers, when that smoke that wafts up in the air in a continuous movement is capable of expressing so much in a regrettably fleeting moment. In it you can see the leaf nerves, the planters’ houses and even a palm tree, a must-have in our scenery and environment.” Flora Fong is by and large one of the renowned Cuban artists, well known for her vital brushstrokes and colorfulness. She’s also tried her hand at pottery, stain glass, sculpture and fabric design. Her abundant work has been thoroughly catalogued and she has won prizes and awards in the U.S., Germany, Russia, Spain, Mexico, Portugal, Italy, France, Japan and Korea, among other countries.