Armando Guiller

The Cuban Art NY (see www.cubaartny.org) offered a collective exhibition of contemporary Cuban artists in New York, in October 2009, at the Dactyl Foundation Gallery. Some of the artists on view included: Lilliam Cuenca, Carmen Herrera, Giovanni Bosch, Carlos Estevez, Heriberto Mora, Mario García Joya, Armando Guiller, and Arturo Rodriguez.

I was taken there by one of my Cuban friends and while this is all very interesting in terms of symbolism and the way those artists mesh their indigenous culture with contemporary ideas of human communication, environmental activities and philosophical themes; I did not think I would find anything potentially related to my research. But I did…

Armando Guiller is a mechanical engineer by training, and a growing artist by passion, and has won numerous honorary awards. His sculptural work has the ability to communicate with scientists, engineers and artists, as it involves craft, mathematical precision, and highly conceptual and philosophical investigations into spatial and perspectival associations. He uses both industrial (metal) and natural (wood) materials, which he treats himself with heavy machinery. Guiller’s modular structures address the relationships between time, space and matter, with a specific focus on helical displacement, which he names “Mechanical Archetypes.” As it has been defined, “a helix is a type of space curve,” and is characterized by its curving property as it continuously performs an angular directional growth.