26a Alazo (Alejandro Lazo), Untitled, 2006. Oil on canvas. 21,25” x 25.5”. #4624

ALAZO (Alejandro Lazo), (b. Havana, 1970), is a self-taught painter who began painting in 1986 as part of the atelier workshop in the Adolfo Delgado cultural center in San Agustin, La Lisa, on Havana’s outskirts. When he finished high school he joined an artists’ collective at the Domingo Ravenet Gallery in La Lisa and for the next three years exhibited there in group and solo shows. In 1991 he became part of the “independent artists’ registry” at the Cultural Patrimony Fund, a government art agency, and began participating in a new series of exhibits in Cuba and abroad. While developing his unique style, he earned money illustrating research works and scientific articles about medical anthropology and rheumatology. His work’s inspiration is African spirituality, specifically Palo Monte and Santería beliefs, but unlike other Cuban artists drawing on African religions, his art plumbs mostly the darker Palo Monte rather than Santería. Lazo emigrated from Spain to the U.S. in 2008.