
Cuba // Solva
Born in Guantanamo Province, Cuba (1958) to a farming family, he was adopted at age 3 by aunt and uncle (uncle Pedro Speck musician with Changui) after his mum passed away. At 11, he left home for navy school followed by art training with Renaldo Group, Guantanamo. After army conscription, he was awarded his own gallery in Santa Cruz del Norte. Later in Havana he became a founding member of Rene Portocarrero silk screen printing studio – the most important in Cuba.
Speak participated in BBC Arena film in Havana in 1989 and was bought by them to the UK. He opened an art gallery and studio in Spitalfields Market, London. His work has been exhibited worldwide including in the Revue Noire European Group of 27 Black Artists. He moved to Wales in 1995, opening his own gallery in Solva.
He is also a talented musician and composes concerts like Pembrokeshire Weather Report which premiered in St Davids Cathedral. Speak also heads a Cuban Jazz Band.
Email:
raul@raulspeek.co.uk
Website:
www.raulspeek.co.uk
Over the last 10 years, I have began to see inside my identity; where I am going as a person within my civilisation I realised that was driving my creative work. Leaving a legacy for the next generation interests me too. I was born into the most important Latin American political and ideological revolution. Looking back I find there are many destructive opinions and points of view about this system. Whatever people’s opinions are, it is a private personal issue, for I am the one who lived and suffered the consequences. I realise that in fact, there was no choice, I was just born there. Over recent years I have had to juggle and filter other people’s opinions about my work, which may or may not be right according to their own point of view. At the end of the day, I believe that many artists, for example Marc Chagall along with others born into the beginning of Communism in the Soviet Union, had the same problem. I accept the consequences as long as I can remain honest in my creative expression and present my experiences openly and transparently enough that people can make up their own minds or learn from my experience.
Now I am investigating, as far as I can, the origins of my cultural identity. My current exhibition is precisely regarding that issue and includes 10 years of creating pieces in a contemporary conceptual style about the mystery of my own civilization of Latin America.