Vilva (Elio Vilva-Trujillo) #5255. "Obatala," 2000. Mixed media on paper. 19.75 x 17 inches.

E. VILVA [Elio Vilva Trujillo], was born in 1957 in Trinidad, Cuba where he still lives. He grew up surrounded by the syncretic cults and Yoruba deities of his beloved Trinidad; he internalized these ideas which later emerged through his brushes. As a child he told stories and made puppets of papier mache, always surrounded by practitioners of Santeria. After graduating as a teacher specializing in grammar and literature, he  worked as a junior high school teacher and briefly directed the Benito Ortiz Gallery in Trinidad. Vilva has done extensive research on the religious iconography of African origin in Cuba and shapes detailed drawings and paintings of the Santeria orishas and their characteristics. He says that for him his works “are more art than religion, but I want to show that many dreamlike, spiritual, nightmarish and magical factors intervene in the creation of a work of art.”