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Things of Female
Gabriela Reyna | 23 July to 11 September 2026 -
Gabriela Reyna was born in Havana in 1991. She graduated from the University of the Arts of Cuba in 2016 and has served as a professor of sculpture at the San Alejandro Academy since 2022. Based in Havana, her work investigates female identity, domestic space, and the body as a lived political territory.
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Ahead of our final exhibition of the year, Fragments of Cuba, we are pleased to present an early introduction to Gabriela Reyna, one of the participating artists. This preview highlights selected works from her ongoing series, developed between 2013 and 2023, in which she reinterprets female portraits from art history using makeup and make-up remover towels. Through these unconventional materials, Reyna explores female identity, beauty, domestic ritual and the body as a political territory. The featured works offer a first glimpse into the ideas that will shape the forthcoming exhibition and are currently available for acquisition.
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“I began to paint like them, but
with my own materials: makeup and make-up remover towels.”
— Gabriela Reyna -
Developed between 2013 and 2023, the series appropriates female portraits painted by male artists throughout the history of art. In doing so, Reyna revisits the academic exercise of studying the Old Masters while questioning the gendered structures embedded within that tradition. Many of the female figures that shaped the visual language of art history were represented through the gaze of men. Reyna turns back to these images, not to reproduce them passively, but to recover the women behind them.
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Her work is held in collections in Cuba and internationally, including the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana and the private collection of Jorge M. Pérez in Miami. She is represented by Galería Servando, Havana, and was selected for the Haifa Mediterranean Biennial, Videonale #1: Image of Happiness, in 2023. Recent presentations include El Baño at Simard Bilodeau Contemporary, Los Angeles, El Motivo at Galería Acacia, and Atravesar el Caribe a la sombra de una ceiba at the Centro Wifredo Lam.
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Mockup installation view of Ignacio Gómez Jaramillo - Espalda / Back
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Gabriela Reyna: Things of Female
Current viewing_room
