Jesús Cardona
"First Puppetry Festival" (1977)
"First Puppetry Festival" (1977)
Painter and graphic artist. After earning a bachelor’s degree in painting from the School of Visual Arts of the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture (ICP, by its Spanish acronym) in 1976, he began working as a poster designer at the Graphics Workshop of the ICP. In the seventies he was a member of the "Guajana" printmaking and poetry group, and he is recognized as a good percussionist musician of "Bomba" and "Plena" (percussion driven dances with distinct rhythms of African traditions). In 1979 he won first prize for printmaking awarded in the "Tribute to Francisco Matos Paoli", and in 1994 was recognized with an honorable mention in the Alfonso Arana Foundation contest. He has exhibited his paintings, posters and prints in several local and international events, such as the San Juan Biennial of Printmaking in Latin America and the Caribbean (1979 and 1986), the Ljubljana Printmaking Biennial, Yugoslavia (1986) and the Seville National Pavilion (1992). He also has participated in group exhibitions, such as “A Selection of Prints in America” in Venezuela (1978), “The Poster in Puerto Rico: 1946 1985” and “Xylography in Puerto Rico: 1950 1986”, the latter two held at the Museum of History, Anthropology and Art of the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus. He has chosen xylography as his preferred technique to express his artistic language in his graphic work.