What a wonder to encounter a Cuban artist who doesn’t depend on Cuba! Or at least, not too much. That’s the first thing I think as I look over some works by Leticia Sánchez Toledo.
And blessed be her light!
Leticia and Tony, her husband, kindly show us the works the artist is exhibiting in the group show Pétits: Women Artists Redefining the Scale (Pan American Art Projects, April 6 – June 7, 2025) and others stored in the back, beyond a door through which we venture with them.
I am immediately struck by the peace these canvases impart. I suppose it owes something to the spatial and chromatic balance of her compositions, to the cozy atmosphere of her interior spaces, to the harmonious stillness and harmonious activity present in the gestures and expressions of the people who inhabit them. Even the desolation in the faces and the slumping of the bodies have a pleasant, rhythmic unfolding in her paintings. Everyone seems to feel it—the stillness, I mean—the tranquility of these works.
But I also sense a peace that unsettles me, surely something more subjective. Through these oils, I glimpse the very remote possibility of avoiding genocide. I mention this to the artist, and she opens her eyes wide. I explain that she seems to have skipped a century—or deliberately ignored it. And with great success, too. A century of discord and distortion that entangles us in its dynamics and ultimately fragments us. And I wonder if we might emulate these paintings, attempt a pause, a minute of silence so we don’t lose sight of each other. That would be another kind of solution.
Then I think of how much more attractive a person can be when they are absorbed in something, oblivious to themselves. How beautiful these seamstresses are, not posing or sewing for the camera, despite looking as if they’ve stepped out of a film scene. They’re not there to be seen, but someone has seen them—not so much through the lens as through their own experience, their personal memory. These and other seamstresses, people devoted to their craft, radiate the beauty of their attention, of their work. There is so much respect and tenderness in the gaze that captures and represents these scenes. And so much skill, too, in the hand that paints them.
These images have a connection to cinema that can be deceptive. At first glance, they seem like spontaneous shots of everyday, realistic, photographic scenes—but they are neither. They are staged, studied, curated, and elaborately crafted in detail from a very different language, especially those that take cinema as their starting point. You have to listen closely to Leticia when she explains that she was born in Cabaiguán, right next to the town’s movie theater. And that she spent many hours there, watching and rewatching films, absorbed in their images and scenography much more than in their stories, which were already too familiar. I believe the language of cinema was her mother tongue, her way of connecting with herself and with others. She paints as if she had been born inside the cinema, not next to it.
In her most recent phase, Leticia Sánchez Toledo paints interior scenes. Her world begins at the thresholds. She’s interested in who we are when the door closes. She moves inward, you might say, but keeps her distance. And those distances are articulated in flashes and chromatic reverberations—or in a reverse chiaroscuro that conceals the faces of her protagonists, perhaps to protect them. She gravitates toward the light—who can doubt it? But it’s a light filtered through our environments and objects, humanized by us.
What a delight to step into and lose oneself in the pauses of her time! Here everyone is visible, imaginable, lovable, even if we only see their backs, a profile, or the fragment of a body in the next room. The exchange of some young people through the metro window. The woman alone, texting at night or killing real time in virtual spaces, behind the windows of a laundromat. It’s not the light; it’s her gaze you feel in these canvases.
To really, finally see each other! That’s one solution. To look at each other carefully and not lose sight of one another. And it gives me great peace that someone is painting that, framing it, and putting it on the market. Because the other solution, well—you know—it’s not looked upon kindly by the UN.
This text has been translated into English. To read the original version in Spanish, please visit: https://hypermediamagazine.com/arte/artes-visuales/una-pausa-con-leticia/
