Oandris (Joa) Tejeiro is a Cuban visual artist who began his artistic career as a self-taught artist in Cuba. He studied Sociocultural Studies at the Universidad de Oriente in Santiago de Cuba. And the same time began to work on the theme of portraiture, and use it as way to tell stories about the people around him. Joa also worked for 10 years as visual arts expert and curator at the Casa del Caribe ( Cultural Institution in Santiago de Cuba).
Joa Tejeiro also carries out art projects with young people and children, where experimentation with alternative materials is the main focus, as well as three-dimensional and figurative art work
His works have been exhibited in numerous galeries in Cuba such a Centro de Arte en Santiago de Cuba, Galeria Oriente, Casa del Caribe y Casa de las Américas, and international art spaces such as the CCC Kunstraum Galerie in Munich, Villa Sponte, Galerie am schwarzen Meer, Gallery M6 in Prague and the Casa de Carraresi, Treviso, Italy. He also participated in the Xll Bienal de la Habana, Cuba (Collateral Project), among other personal and collective exibitions.
Oandris (Joa) Tejeiro work in Germany, where he continues through portraiture and alternative art media to tell stories about people of the Afro-Cuban diaspora.
Through portaiture, my work reflects the stories of marginal characters in contemporary Afro-Cuban culture. Men, woman, youth; those who are stigmatized and people who live the saily ravages of racial conflicts in today`s Cuba, who struggle to have a voice and presence in society. The use of a limited palette of unconventional colors, textiles, objects and materials, which form a collective patchwork; has been fundamental in the development of my work. The uso of colors such as black and white tones have marked my work, and they have given it the necessary formal synthesis to express, in a timely manner, the essence of the characters that i paint. On occasions, these elements become stories of daily life and show my work as visual reflection.
My paintings seek to show and vindicate Afro-Cuban roots through a pictorial language that is accessible to all, an emotional language that reflects the viewer as in a mirror. With this work i intend to establish contact and communication with the people who observe it; especially the young Afro-descendants, by showing their roots and making them proud of it.
