Leandro Soto

Diáspora

Reprinted by permission of Leandro Soto. © Leandro Soto.

“Diaspora,” by artist and Cuban exile Leandro Soto. The painting forms part of Soto’s recent body of work, entitled “Soledad de las islas,” for which the image of a rafter – a balsero – is a metaphor for the Cuban diaspora. The seascapes include a mythical dimension, as well, representing Yemayá, goddess of the ocean, in her various manifestations in the Yoruba tradition. Blue is her favorite color. In “La Diáspora,” Cuba becomes a raft to suggest that the island is floating adrift.

Soto’s work has shown widely in both individual and group exhibitions, in the U.S. and abroad, notably in Mexico and Cuba. He is a subject of an interview by Holy Cross Prof. Isabel Álvarez Borland in the forthcoming volume of the journal Afro-Hispanic Review at Vanderbilt University (2008).