Vibraciones

Galleria Continua is pleased to present, for the first time at its Paris Marais venue, the solo show Vibraciones by Cuban artist José Yaque. Vibraciones offers a journey through a collection of works created in different formats and media, conceived as an expanded, multisensory experience. It brings together pieces from different stages of the artist’s creative process and, at the same time, signals a transition towards new formal experiments. The exhibition is divided into three distinct spaces. The visit begins with works with darker and more mysterious atmospheres, where there are no defined forms, but rather density, evocation, and flavor. In the second space, light and color begin to unfold progressively. Finally, the third space opens up to an explosion of luminosity and movement. The contrast between these atmospheres creates a dynamic and immersive experience for the viewer. The exhibition is located on the first floor of the gallery. To reach it, the viewer must ascend the stairs, as if one emerges from the earth. This action introduces the first significant sensation of the exhibition : upon arrival, the viewer encounters a mound of earth from which buried bottles emerge. The first piece is Maduración (2018), a work composed of eighteen large jars of aliñao - a traditional liqueur from eastern Cuba - buried either completely or partially in the ground. The piece originates from a Cuban tradition linked to birth : when a baby is about to be born, this liqueur is prepared and stored for nine months. After the birth, it is shared with family and friends, and then the bottle is buried for fifteen years, until it is unearthed and shared again on that anniversary. There is no single recipe : each bottle is unique, as an individual. The earth here serves as a tribute to memory, time, and tradition. Alongside Maduración is a series of drawings created in 2020, during a period of introspection for the artist. These abstract works, with their strong sensory impact, take stone as their formal reference point. Created in charcoal on paper, they produce a sense of estrangement and function as studies of form and matter. Nestled in a small niche, we can find Ámbar, a piece whose creation began in 2023 in the mountains of Madrid. The work consists of nearly 200 glass jars containing vegetation from that environment, encapsulated in natural pine resin - the biological origin of amber. Ámbar emits a light that seems to emerge from within : it is the first intense and luminous vibration that the viewer encounters in the exhibition. The second space establishes a middle ground, an area for dialogue. It presents works from the series dedicated to minerals, which José Yaque has been developing for several years, exploring the origin of color from mineral pigments. In these canvases, the artist evokes the geological processes that shape the natural world and captures the energy of nature from its deepest layers. This fascination with geology translates into pictorial techniques where paint flows freely, mixes and settles autonomously, allowing chance and gravity to play a crucial role in the construction of the image. The last section of the first floor is the one dedicated to movement and flow. There, Río unfolds, a large installation that occupies the floor of the gallery and presents itself as a chromatic expansion. “Río” embodies free and moving painting : a pictorial channel of color and vibrations. The paintings arranged on the walls function as tributaries, like chromatic waterfalls that symbolically flow into the floor. Conceived as a highly immersive work the viewers, upon entering, can feel how the work envelops and absorbs them. The space is occupied by a river of pigment, that seems to arise from a subjective distillation of the colors generated by the works hanging on the walls. A pictorial spring that gushes forth, expands, and freely appropriates the space, generating chromatic combinations almost autonomously. Vibraciones is presented as an experience that activates memory, the body, and perception, where matter, time, and energy are intertwined through earth, pigment, light, and movement. José Yaque constructs a sensory landscape in which tradition and experimentation coexist, and where painting expands beyond its medium to become an experience. The exhibition invites the viewer to inhabit this flow, to be carried away by its rhythms and to perceive art as a living field of resonances. José Eduardo Yaque Llorente was born in Manzanillo, Cuba in 1985. He currently lives and works between Havana and Madrid. He studied at Carlos Enríquez Professional Academy of Fine Arts in Manzanillo (2005) and the Higher Institute of Art (ISA) in Havana (2011). In 2010 he participated in the first Biennial of Contemporary Art in Portugal and exhibited at Wasps Artists’ Studios, in Glasgow, Scotland. In 2012 he won a residence in Warsaw : in Poland he exhibited in the Zacheta Project Room of the National Gallery of Art in Warsaw as part of the collective exhibition Fragmentos and achieved, at the National Gallery of Art Zacheta, his first solo exhibition outside national borders. In 2017, he took part in the collective exhibition of the Cuban Pavilion, in Palazzo Loredan, at the 57th Venice Biennale. Among his solo exhibitions, we mention : Muro de Sonido, Galleria Continua / Havana (2025); Eruzione, Galleria Continua / San Gigmignano (2023); Maturation, Galleria Continua / Roma (2020); El dilema del ciempensamientos, Colegio de Arquitectos (UNAICC), Havana (2019) ; Calma, Mario Mauroner Contemporary Art, Vienna (2019); Kind of Blue, David Gill Gallery, London (2018); Origen, Galleria Continua / Habana (2017); Alluvione d´Arno, Villa Pacchiani Exhibition Centre, Santa Croce sull´Arno, Pisa (2017); Tierra Madre, David Gill Gallery, London (2017); Gravedad, Galleria Continua / Les Moulins, France (2015); Scavare, Galleria Continua / San Gimignano, Italy (2015); Magma, National Library of Cuba, Havana (2015). Group exhibitions that feature his work include: Sur Papier, Galleria Continua / Paris Marais, France (2025); La capacidad de soñar, Galleria Continua / Habana, Cuba (2025); Kaleidoscopes : contemporain perspectives, Galleria Continua / Les Moulins, France (2024); Arena entre las manos, Galleria Continua / Habana (2023); You know who you are : Recent Acquisitions of Cuban Art from the Jorge Pérez Collection, El Espacio 23, Miami, USA (2022); La naturaleza de las cosas, PlusArtis, Madrid (2022) ; Viva la devolución , Utopía 126, Barcelona, Madrid (2021); Commanderie de Peyrassol. Nouvelles installations permanents, France, 2021 ; Mirador Circular, Galleria Continua / Habana (2020); ABUC , Mai36 Gallery, Switzerland (2019); Agua Salada, Regla, Havana (2019) ; Ola Cuba!, Gare Saint Sauveur, Lille (2018) ; Art Basel Unlimited, Basel (2018); Cuban Art Now, Singer Laren Museum, Amsterdam (2017); ¿Soy Cuba?, Palazzina dei Bagni Misteriosi, Milan (2017); Queen Anne´s lacy , Wasserman Projects, Detroit (2017); Cuba mi amor, Galleria Continua / Les Moulins, France (2017) ; The meantime, Voorlinden Museum, Wassenaar, The Hague, Netherlands (2017); Nido sin árbol, Colegio de Arquitectos (UNAICC), Havana (2016); Cuarteto, Galleria Continua , / Habana (2016); Transhumance, CAB Art Center, Brussels (2016); TÚ + YO = Nosotros, Galleria Continua / Habana (2015); Wind and Art Don’t Care about Border, Metropolitan Art Society, Beirut (2015); Anclados en el territorio, Galleria Continua / Habana (2015); Follia Continua (25 Years of Galleria Continua ), Centquatre, Paris; Senderos de Bosque, Emerson College/ Ruskin East G. Floor, Forest Road, England, UK (2013).