Tomás Sánchez is a Cuban artist based in Costa Rica. In “La perseverancia de un artista cubano llamado Tomás Sánchez” [The Perseverance of a Cuban Artist Named Tomás Sánchez], Wilfredo Cancio Isla (café fuerte) asks, “How does an artist process being far from his homeland? What role did Antonia Eiriz, Pablo Milanés, or Gabriel García Márquez play in the life of the best-selling living Cuban painter on the international market? In this interview with Café Fuerte, Tomás Sánchez speaks candidly about his beginnings, censorship, his decision not to return to Cuba since 2017, and the Miami premiere of the documentary Perseverance, a look at his life and legacy.” With the title of the article, Cancio Isla is referring to a documentary on the artist, Perseverancia (by Mexican filmmaker Juan Carlos Martín), which screened recently (April 13) at the Miami International Film Festival.
Read the full interview, in Spanish, at café fuerte; here are translated excerpts from Cancio Isla’s review and interview.
Entering his landscapes is a seductive adventure that combines the pleasure of experiencing beauty with a breath of mysticism and brilliance. It’s an experience that moves viewers from diverse backgrounds and places around the world, drawn by the visions of an exceptional creator. Tomás Sánchez is currently the highest-paid living Cuban painter in the international art market. But above all, he is an artist who has taught us to see, to perceive our surroundings differently, to think about reality, and to enjoy nature with a special sense of responsibility toward the universe we inhabit. That, in essence, is helping us live better in this turbulent and often insensitive world of our time.
That is the meaning of his painting, both quintessentially Cuban and universal, whether it be his dazzling forests and lagoons or his stark depictions of garbage dumps, a stark reminder of the physical and spiritual devastation of the planet. A reflection by Gabriel García Márquez on the enduring significance of Tomás Sánchez’s work reminds us that if the world truly deserves to be remade, it should resemble his paintings as closely as possible, reflecting the enchantment emanating from his splendid and luminous creations. [. . .]
Wilfredo Cancio Isla (WCI): I’m very impressed because, since the announcement of your documentary’s screening, there’s been a lot of buzz in Miami, and the show is already completely sold out at the Koubek Center. The festival has had to add a second screening. For you, who were a Miami resident for so long, what significance does it have that this documentary is, in a way, beginning its run in this city?
Tomás Sánchez (TS): For me, it’s very important. Miami, even though it’s in the United States, is another part of Cuba. I’m Cuban American, I’m very proud to be Cuban, and I’m also proud to be an American citizen. I chose to live in Costa Rica because of nature. This is a country with incredible natural beauty, and everything is accessible. I managed to acquire a piece of land, a mountain, restore a section of forest, and have wonderful views that nourish me all the time. But I always carry Miami in my heart. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to Miami. I haven’t been to Cuba in nine years and to Miami in seven.
WCI: When and why did you stop visiting Cuba?
TS: I stopped going to Cuba in 2017 when I saw that the entire project that Barack Obama was proposing wasn’t taken into account. I had hoped that it might be accepted, that there might be a change in Cuba, that the country would open up to a market economy and that all the problems that have been plaguing us for so many years would be resolved, but it didn’t happen, and I decided not to return to Cuba. I continued going to Miami, but that was before the pandemic. I was in Miami in 2019, and I haven’t been back since. Even the parts filmed in that city were done by the documentary team; I wasn’t there. I also obviously wasn’t present for the filming in Cuba. We traveled to several countries; there were two filming sessions in Mexico, two in Costa Rica, one in Belgium, and another in New York at the Frederich Edwin Church House Museum. Church is a painter with whom I have a more spiritual than aesthetic affinity, although I really like the entire Hudson River School. It was a very intense thing, but at the same time I had to keep working and I couldn’t go everywhere. [. . .]
WCI: We began the interview, and inevitably the topic of Cuba surfaced throughout the conversation. To what extent does Cuban life, Cuban pain, the feeling of Cuba remain present in your work? How have you managed to process all of that after your voluntary absence since 2017?
I was born in Aguada de Pasajeros, in what is now the province of Cienfuegos, and I grew up in the Perseverancia Sugar Mill [now called Primero de Mayo]. That’s why the documentary is titled Perseverancia (Perseverance), because of my life, because of the way I’ve had to persevere to make my way, but also because of the town where I was born. It’s also a tribute to the people of that town who have always been so generous to me. I left Cuba in 1990 with a group of Cuban artists. The Cuban government gave us the opportunity to go to Mexico. It was like an agreement: you can be abroad and you can return whenever you want, but you can’t make press statements against the Cuban system. It’s like a stamp. Some of the artists stayed; most of them settled permanently in Mexico. I was in Cuba facing a major dilemma, because while the value of my paintings was rising, Cuban institutions were selling them through the Cuban Fund for Cultural Assets for half price. This was destroying the market that galleries in Mexico were building. [. . .]
Translated excerpts by Ivette Romero. For full article (in Spanish), see https://cafefuerte.com/la-perseverancia-de-un-artista-cubano-llamado-tomas-sanchez/
[Images above: 1) Tomás Sánchez: Detail of photo by Julián Trejos. 2) Tomás Sánchez’s “Descubriendo una isla” (2025).]
Tomás Sánchez is a Cuban artist based in Costa Rica. In “La perseverancia de un artista cubano llamado Tomás Sánchez” [The Perseverance of a Cuban Artist Named Tomás Sánchez], Wilfredo Cancio Isla (café fuerte) asks, “How does an artist process being far from his homeland? What role did Antonia Eiriz, Pablo Milanés, or Gabriel García
