DECONSTRUCTING AN IDEALIZED CARIBBEAN IN SANTO DOMINGO

Caba’s work emerges from a visceral episode that placed him in the Intensive Care Unit of a medical center in Santo Domingo. While recovering from surgery—drifting between delirium and lucidity—he was struck by a question that runs throughout the exhibition: Which ideas have I inherited, and which do I truly believe in?

The artist deconstructs an idealized Caribbean, exposing a fragmented and contradictory territory shaped by popular fictions and distorted rumors circulating through backyards and streets. Caba plays with a symbolic landscape that fluctuates between the mythical and the mundane, where the real and fantasy merge with the popular to generate new narratives.

"This is ultimately a meditation on the abyss and the creative impulse that emerges from it; from there comes an unusually explosive color palette: a stroke that insists on life even when it seems to fade," explains curator Orlando Isaac. He concludes: "These works continue to pose uncomfortable questions about the body, the spirit, and the soul—questions that were ever-present in the process from which they emerged. And yet, they seek neither answers nor conclusions; they are merely a symbolic affirmation of existence, an image of what survives."

Franz Caba (1991) is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist and Dominican architect, a graduate of the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo. Through drawing, painting, and installation, he explores the tensions arising from the relationship between the body, objects, and space. He has participated in various national and international exhibitions—both solo and group—as well as artist residencies and competitions, including Caribbean Linked V in 2018 and the 28th Eduardo León Jimenes Art Contest in 2020.

Contra todo pronóstico is on view at Lucy García Gallery, Roberto Pastoriza #412 | Torre Altri Tempi, Piantini, Santo Domingo (República Dominicana).

*Cover image: Franz Caba. Lo que no se va en llanto. Courtesy Lucy García Gallery.