CORAL GABLES, FLORIDA.- Glexis Novoa, Visionary Artist is on view at the Lowe Art Museum through June 4, 2006. Cuban-born Novoa, who has been a Miami resident since 1995, is best known for his drawings and installations in graphite on marble -- he utilizes striations in the stone as compositional points of departure -- canvas, and plaster walls. Meticulously drafted depictions of cityscapes explore both physical and psychological landscapes, evoking recognition of how memory is distorted by nostalgia and expectation. The exhibition, drawn from local collections, has been organized and curated by Denise Gerson, Associate Director for Curatorial Affairs at the Lowe, features a site-specific installation by the artist.

Sometimes precise and controlled, other times hallucinatory, Novoa’s work employs a dazzling command of Renaissance perspective space, dominated by a horizon line and an equally relentless vanishing point. Some of the images conjure Miami with startling accuracy; others are extrapolated from the history of architecture. Often, urban skylines, seen from afar, are juxtaposed against vast oceans, or supported surreally by massive, floating, vessel-like forms.

Novoa began his career in Havana, where he studied lithography and graphic design. He became involved with Cuba’s artistic movements of the 1980s, especially installation and performance art, and showed internationally with a group of young, privileged artists. However, growing artistic censorship under the Castro regime eventually became intolerable, and he expatriated to Miami, where, freed from political constraint, his imagery underwent important changes.

Living and working in South Florida, concepts of time, memory, and human endeavor assumed increasing iconographic significance, with power, symbolized by architectonic forms, a constant obsession and presence in his art. References from the past, the present, and the future began to dominate his work. Turrets, ruined cathedrals, modern skyscrapers, and victory statues, fill the eye and mind, often simultaneously, evoking allegories of the possible folly of political power, first-hand knowledge of which Novoa has from living in Cuba.

Asked to explicate his art, the artist has written, “I have chosen architecture as one of the most universal decoding systems of symbols created by humans…I recognize cities as the most complete _expression of architecture and the greatest tangible trace of human kind on Earth.”