Ernesto Alba

Born in Havana, Cuba, Ernesto Alba is a visual artist currently living and working in Canada. Having spent the past years travelling and living in different countries and cities, his work reflects an ongoing dialogue between memory, identity, displacement, and the human condition.

Working with charcoal, oil pastel, oil, and acrylic on canvas and paper, Alba creates interconnected compositions that move between abstraction and figuration. His visual language draws from Renaissance, Baroque, and Rococo traditions, while religious symbolism, particularly Catholic and Cuban iconography, provides a recurring vocabulary through which he explores the complexities of human existence.

At the heart of his practice lies an intimate relationship between personal memory and the physical and emotional landscape of Havana. Its deteriorating architecture, stained walls, rusted surfaces, broken tiles, and unexpected combinations of colour have become metaphors for a more personal form of decay. Marked by an emotionally neglected childhood, Alba recognizes in the city's fractures a reflection of his own inner landscape. Yet, beneath the damage, he discovers an unexpected beauty, a fragile poetry that emerges through imperfection, vulnerability, an...

I am a self-taught artist