Con la Puerta Abierta: A Wastescape of the Future

Abstract

Tomás Sánchez is one of the most well known contemporary Cuban artists. Following his first recognition in 1980 with the XIX Joan Miró International Drawing Prize, Sánchez took his place in the international art scene. Although he followed the traditional medium of landscape artists using acrylic and oil on canvas, Sánchez made a name for himself by creating paintings that commented on ecological awareness and humans’ hurtful relationship with nature. Sánchez, a long time practicer of Siddha Yoga, claims that his artistic inspiration comes from meditative sessions where he contemplates nature and how humans interact with it. One of his most known pieces influenced by his meditations is Con la Puerta Abierta (2015), which depicts an expansive waste landscape referred to by Francisco J. Hernández Adrián as a “wastescape.” In this short research article, I argue that in Con la Puerta Abierta, Sánchez invites the viewer to become a tourist of a dystopia with no indication of human or natural life. Moreover, this plunging of the audience into the environment forces them to consider their responsibility for the current disastrous ecological state of the world and its immediate consequences.