Danco Duportai

Danco Duportai
b. 1997
Holguin, Cuba
lives and works in Mexico City, MX

Duportai studied at the Provincial Academy of Fine Arts, Eduardo Abela, in San Antonio de Los Baños then went on to graduate from The National Academy of Fine Art, San Alejandro, in Havana. The artist began painting “consciously” at the age of ten leading to what he likens to a compulsion. “I paint every day, and if I’m not painting, I’m thinking about painting. It’s a vice, a ritual...”

The young Cuban artist, living and working in Mexico, is celebrated for his dreamlike oil paintings which often blend classical technique with contemporary surrealism. Rooted in the tradition of academic realism, his work evokes a sense of mystery, introspection, and narrative depth.

”My work is born from a deep desire to explore memory. Painting, for me, is a process very similar to remembering: it’s about slowly revealing an image that already exists within me, constructed from personal, collective, or family memories.

Each piece is a way of recovering something that is transformed through observation, just as memory itself is.

I work from a figurative base; loose, gestural strokes and highly resolved details might summarize the work at first glance. I often rely on the miniature format, which I combine with large-scale pieces. This relationship between the intimate and the expansive allows me to approach memory at different scales and levels of perception. My works often incorporate everyday elements like lamps and cushions, as well as body fragments acting as triggers for memories of moments that have already happened.

In some cases, I work on fragile surfaces because I’m interested in reflecting the fragility of memory, and I use the miniature format to invite the viewer into an intimate moment of contemplation where the scale demands a more personal approach. Ultimately, every piece I create is an attempt to construct the past from the present, knowing that in this act I also transform it.”

Danco has shown his work in Havana, Paris and Los Angeles, as well as in the PAN Museum of Contemporary Art, Naples, Italy.

He is working on an ongoing project with Conde Contemporary titled “Tokens of Memory : The Miniature Portrait Project”.

Please click here for more information on the project, or click the button below to commission a portrait in the series.