IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 6 ENGLISH | Page 133

Antonia Eiriz, La Anunciación, oil on cloth (1963)
Antonia was determined “conflictive,”
since her works’ essential trait expressed
the other reality of that historic moment,
contrary to the praiseful topics artworks
should embrace. From 1968 on, she
found herself pressured to stop painting;
she locked herself up in her home for
more than 20 years, and remained far
from institutional dynamics in which she
had been involved. There she took on
less conflictive creative projects. Many
years later, and quite by chance, she
turned up in the Juanelo neighborhood,
on the outskirts of Havana. She was
involved in a series of popular art
workshops and with community people.
They fostered the Cuban Papier Maché
school (Meira 1998). Nearly in the
twilight of her life, she responded to a
question regarding the past, present, and
posterity, that had for too long gone
unanswered: “When they said those
things to me about my painting being
conflictive, I eventually believed it. My

work La tribuna was going to receive a
prize, but didn’t, due to the criticism.
One day, for the first time in a long time,
I saw my paintings all together, and said
to myself: these are paintings that
express the moment in which I live. If a
painter can express the moment in which
he or she lives, it is genuine. So, I
absolved myself.” (Fernández 2013:35).
The topic of religion was one of the most
visibly implicated in the exclusions of
that era. Catholicism and Protestantism,
as well as Spiritualism, and syncretic
practices of African origin, due to their
popular origins, were extolled as folklore
inherited from a long colonial and
neocolonial
process.
They
were
understood as authentic obstacles to the
social ideal of the time. This ensured that
intellectuals whose work delved deeply
into traditional and popular religiosity
became subject to arbitrary, institutional
restrictions and preferences, which
favored officialdom and those who sang

133