Writings

Critical Acclaim Unveiled: Diverse Voices on Carlos Luna’s Creativity

CARLOS LUNA: BEYOND THE SURFACE

One of the most dynamic voices in contemporary Latin American art today, Carlos Luna is featured in a monographic exhibition, Carlos Luna: Beyond the Surface, which will be...

Scott Schweigert
Curator of Art & Civilization
Reading Public Museum, 2023

LADIES FIRST: THE ART OF CARLOS LUNA

One of the foremost contemporary Cuban American artists, Carlos Luna is part of a generation of Latin Americans who embrace their strong heritage and traditions while reinventing themselves along the way. Luna tells stories and narrates fables through detailed...

Carol Damian
Curator, 2022

GREEN MACHINE: CHRONICLES OF AN EVERYDAY LIGHTNESS

Born in 1969 in Pinar del Rio, Cuba, Carlos Luna explores across a far-ranging body of work how memories and imagination affect temporal perception. His art draws deeply upon the rich rural culture...

Bárbaro Martínez-Ruiz
Cape Town, South Africa, 2016

A STUDIO VISIT WITH CARLOS LUNA

I was fortunate to spend some time with Carlos Luna in his Miami studio. We discussed his process, the materials and techniques he has mastered, his artistic motifs, and the cultural context that...

Jack Rasmussen
Washington, DC January 2016

A PERPETUAL MACHINE: THE ART OF CARLOS LUNA

History resides in a popular stanza, in a tired horse, in a ruined house, in the plains, the plants, the leaves, in a hero, in a martyr. One must learn history.[1] Manuel Moreno...

Bárbaro Martínez-Ruiz
Cape Town, South Africa, 2016

SPIRIT IN THE ART OF CARLOS LUNA

Introduction I flew into Miami through a summer storm to spend some time with Carlos Luna. The billowing dark clouds, thunder, lightening, powerful winds, and heavy rains rocked the plane....

Henry John Drewal
Madison, WI 2015

THE UNSETTLING ART OF CARLOS LUNA, OR THE NAUGHTY BOY’S TRICKS

For a work of art to achieve the rare quality that allows it to be considered a classic it must be the result of the mastery of a craft possessed by the artist who created it. Throughout the...

Ramón Alejandro
Miami, FL August 2015

CARLOS LUNA. AN ARTIST’S JOURNEY

Carlos Luna has long been concerned with the passage of time and the persistence of memory in works that are now recognizable for their prodigious use of popular Cuban imagery, Caribbean symbols, and...

Carol Damian, Ph.D.
Miami, FL 2015

THE ART OF CARLOS LUNA

The art of Carlos Luna is UNIQUE. For many reasons. He was born in the year ’69—erotic number—of the 20th century, in San Luis, Pinar del Rio, Cuba. There he...

Alberto Jorge Carol
Miami, FL 2014

CARLOS LUNA: A BOOK OF DAYS

Born in Cuba in 1969, Carlos Luna has always been an artist; he recalls making a painting of his mother at the age of seven. His prodigious talent was recognized and nurtured from an early age, as he...

Carol Cheh
Los Angeles, CA 2010

THE TREE OF LIFE: REAL AND FANTASTIC

The imagery of Carlos Luna is filled with complex patterns and a wealth of detail that serve as the setting for figures, objects, animals, and other arcane symbols that both emerge and merge in his...

Carol Damian, Ph.D.
Miami, FL, July 2008

HALF-MOON WITNESS CARLOS LUNA DIGS FOR THE SPIRITUAL IN ALL THINGS ANIMATE AND INANIMATE

As intensely as I admire "Pablo Picasso Ceramics/Carlos Luna Paintings," the splashy new exhibition at the Museum of Art/Fort Lauderdale, I can't help but wonder whether a lot of people...

Michael Mills
Wilton Manors, FL October 23, 2008

PABLO PICASSO CERAMICS | CARLOS LUNA PAINTINGS A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH

It is sometimes difficult to reconstruct the birth of an idea. Showing the paintings of contemporary artist Carlos Luna (b. Cuba, 1969) alongside the ceramics of Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) is one of...

Annegreth Nill
Fort Lauderdale, FL. August 2008

CARLOS LUNA: CUBAN ARTIST AT THE CROSSROADS

Who is the artist Carlos Luna? Carlos Luna would say that he is a Cuban artist, and this is true in the sense that he was born on the island in 1969, in the tobacco center of Pinar del Rio. He...

Curtis L. Carter
Milwaukee, WI July 1, 2008

PICASSO-LUNA: THE CENTER, THE FRINGES…AND VICE VERSA

…the “center-periphery” model is a false interpretation of the history of...

Jesús Rosado
Miami, FL May 2008

A CONVERSATION WITH CARLOS LUNA. THE BIRD-OF-PARADISE AND ITS SHADOW

JR: How did Carlos Luna, the painter, emerge?CL: I'm going to confess something that I haven't made public before. Only a few people know about this situation; however, it may help to...

Jesús Rosado
Miami, FL Summer 2007

CARLOS LUNA: KEEP YOUR EYES ON ME

Viewers standing before Carlos Luna’s El Gran Mambo (2006, oil on canvas, 144" X 192") will confront a very clear order telling them what they must do. In Spanish, the text reads...

Enrique Garcia Guttierez
San Juan, PR. September 3, 2007

PAINTED MEMOIRS

Any artist is bound to paint aspects of his own autobiography and construct an iconography that is uniquely his own. Carlos Luna is such an artist. The Cuban-born painter moves the viewer through his...

Scott Schweigert
Annville, PA. November 2006

CARLOS LUNA: AN ISLAND FOR THE ROAD

“Art is an epiphany in a coffee cup.” Elizabeth Murray Carlos Luna’s visual harvest abounds in exceptional qualities. First and foremost among these is his conscious decision...

Jesús Rosado
Miami, FL September 2006
 

A “COMPAY” WHO DANCES LIKE AN EGYPTIAN

What relation is there between a Cuban Compay and Amenhotep IV? Between an islander crowing and the god Horus? It would seem an imprudence to match such personages. However, such problem finds its...

Martin Peregrina
Puebla, Mexico, 2001

CARLOS LUNA. THE ARTIST AS HE IS

When a painting of Carlos Luna is contemplated for the first time, its volumetric paradox assails and enhances the bi-dimension even though it is extremely turgid. The background perspective is often...

Jaime Moreno Villarreal
Mexico City, October 2001

THE WORK OF CARLOS LUNA

The work of Carlos Luna constructs itself over the whole basic, residual repertory of Seventies Cuban art, more specifically on the Pop models of print-making of an emblematic and nationalistic bent...

Osvaldo Sánchez
Mexico City, 1995

CARLOS LUNA’S BESTIARY OR CALENDAR OF SAINTS

The child painter from the island of Cuba ransoms the contradictory remains of religions which his grandfather passed on him in extended litanies. A divine majesty which forgetfulness begins to erode...

Juan Soriano
Mexico City, May 1995