The Artist
Abisay Puentes
Cuban-American visual artist based in Syracuse, New York.
An artistic language born in silence
Painting, music, and poetry within one symbolic universe
My work began in silence — not as a metaphor, but as a way of surviving, observing, and resisting inwardly.
Over time, that silence became a language. Painting, music, and poetry joined within La Parábola, a symbolic universe shaped by memory, exile, spiritual fracture, and the search for awakening.
Cuba
The beginning
I was born in Cuba, in a place where silence was often safer than honesty, and where the inner life had to find hidden ways to survive.
From an early age, art and music became more than interests. They became forms of resistance — ways of preserving a private truth when the outside world demanded obedience.
Dr. Juan Enrique Guerrero
The mentor and the parable
Years later, I met Dr. Juan Enrique Guerrero, a mentor who changed the direction of my work. One day, he told me: “Write a story.” I wrote a parable.
In the next class he said: “Now I want you to paint ten paintings from this parable.” I created far more than ten. What began as an assignment became the structure of my life’s work.
Painting gives it form, music gives it atmosphere, and poetry gives it voice.
A visual-sonic practice
One universe, several languages
My work does not unfold through painting alone. Each medium allows me to approach the same symbolic world from a different direction.
What I seek is not simply to create objects, but to build an experience — one that invites the viewer into silence, fracture, memory, and the possibility of awakening.
Selected exhibitions & recognition
A practice developed across museums, galleries, and cultural spaces
Puentes’s work has been presented in the United States and Cuba and is represented in public, corporate, and private collections.
2025 — Community Folk Art Center · Syracuse
2024 — New York Artists Equity Association · New York
2022 — Everson Museum of Art · Syracuse
2019 — Arnot Art Museum · Elmira
2019 — Binghamton University Art Museum
2017 — Point of Contact Gallery · Syracuse
2014 — La Casita Cultural Center Gallery · Syracuse
2011 — Lamar Dodd Art Center · LaGrange
2002 — Museo de la Ciudad · Havana
La Parábola
The four phases
A symbolic journey through the first wound, the fading of the soul, the architecture of captivity, and the mist that distorts reality.
01 — Imposibilitados — The First Wound
02 — Desvanecimiento — The Fading of the Soul
03 — Ciudad Máquina / Machine City — The Architecture of Captivity
04 — Brumas / Mist — The Distortion of Reality
The Studio
Begin a conversation with the work
Ask about an available original, request additional information, or arrange a studio visit. Each message is received personally and with care.