Cuba in all its exuberance, seen by Víctor Manuel Allende Martínez

A hymn to the beauty of the Cuban landscape, with its old cities, its chromatic vitality, that luminous atmosphere you only find in the Caribbean. This is the artwork of Víctor Manuel Allende Martínez, an artist from Matanzas who paints, in a realist style with impressionist touches, urban views and still lifes that are full of life.

His paintings are rich in detail and texture. He works in oil or acrylic on canvas, using the palette knife as well as the brush, which lets him bring some surfaces forward over others by building up matter. He achieves the same effect with the way light falls on the colourful architecture of the streets of Havana. The play of light underlines the edges of the buildings and their bright tones. The truth of a lively setting like this city, with elements as characteristic as the brightly coloured vintage cars.

Allende's painting lets you recognise Cuban roots and identity. The exuberance of his urban scenes and of nature, which shows above all in his still lifes, made up of tropical fruit and alpaca tableware, on whose silvery surface the artist masterfully unfolds suggestive games of reflection that heighten the plausibility of the object portrayed, something key in the still life genre.

This wealth of nuance, the quality of the drawing underneath the painting and his wise handling of light and colour have earned the artist the prizes awarded by the Provincial Council of Visual Arts (CPAP) and the Cuban Association of Artisans and Artists (ACAA) at the Leopoldo Romañach Landscape Salon, in its 11th and 12th editions respectively.

Allende has taken part in various group exhibitions since 1992 and in solo shows (at the Plaza de América gallery in Varadero and the Polivalente gallery in Matanzas, in 2008 and 2010), and he is the author of murals for major hotels such as the Tryp Península and the Barceló in Varadero.