A graduate of the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana in 1994, Esterio Segura has developed an indirect, or subtle, idiom in works that generally relate to the social situation in Cuba. Many of his drawings and sculptures evidence the heterogeneous interchangeability of political, religious, and cultural signs, which he then employs in order to parody Cuba’s current situation and its history.
Mover el cielo con el alma is a prayer in the face of social despondency, an ode to human strength and the will to make dreams reality. Segura draws a human figure with extended arms on which windmills stand, thus raising existential questions that can be answered only by the work’s viewers as they meditate on the risks and sacrifices that stand between happiness and the impossibilities we are constantly faced with.
Identification
Title
Mover el cielo con el alma (Move the Heavens with Your Soul)
Production Date
2002
Object Number
2017.182
Credit Line
Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami, gift of Jorge M. Pérez
Move the Heavens with Your Soul is an artwork by Esterio Segura. It is hung in landscape orientation, meaning its longest side runs parallel to the ground. At the center of this composition stands a figure which takes up the bottom half of this canvas. The figure stands with both arms reaching in either direction facing the audience. The figure has male features from the bottom of the neck down as the figure does not have a head. The figure is cut off at the well-defined muscular torso of this male body. There is a light/white outline around this entire figure. From the collar bone of this male figure sprouts a windmill. Three windmills in total fill the space of the top half of this image. The center windmill standing as a head to this torso with the two other windmills standing on both extended forearms of this figure. This figure is a detailed sketch shaded in and illustrated onto the canvas with neutral tone paint and thick dark markings to border the body. There is only the base of the neck present on this torso. Leaving the entire top half for the less detailed sketch of the windmills. The center windmill and the surrounding two overlap each other seamlessly. The bordering two windmills both stand at the same scale as the center piece. All three windmills are drawn in with thinner dark lines and are coated in white color. Both the towers of the windmills as well as the spinning propellers are white. The white strokes over the dark lines give an illusion of movement as the edges are not straight in nature. They are raw with no structure leaving the image to look hazy or foggy in this white glow around the entire piece. There are a few beams of white brush strokes that do not coat the propeller. These beams seem to represent where the blades of the windmill rested or passed before or after again implying these blades are in motion.
Esterio Segura
Esterio Segura — b. 1970, Santiago de Cuba, Cuba; lives in Havana Artist Page
Artworks Related to Caribbean and Caribbean Diaspora and Latin American and Latinx