Felix De Quesada

Born in Cuba, Felix De Quesada grew up between the Cuban countryside and the city of Camaguey. At the age of ten, his family moved to La Habana, where he attended La Salle School. He later graduated from Law School at La Universidad de La Habana. In 1964, he migrated to the United States. While teaching mathematics at a junior high school in East Los Angeles, he began painting with oils during weekends. Having never attended art classes, he taught himself to paint.

In 2004, after years of painting on his own, he joined Rassouli’s “Painting With Spirit” classes at the Agape International Spiritual Center, in Culver City, California. He changed from Oil to Acrylic, a medium he has continued to use ever since.

In his opinion, a painting is a physical object in the universe, more narrowly in our world, and as such it is subject to all the principles of physics applicable to objects on Earth.

It exists in three-dimensional space and time. Time is still a challenging question for modern physics and is yet to be understood. According to De Quesada, Newton’s absolute time and Einstein’s relativistic time do not answer the question “What is time?”

He believes, time is a function of motion. There is no time , where there is no motion. Space can be thought of without motion. But not time. Time requires motion. As everything in the universe moves, time is essential to the existing of everything.

Reflected visible light waves of varying frequencies received through our eyes are interpreted by the brain and described as colors.

About his new work series, Felix de Quesada says:

“In 2018, I began a series of paintings to represent space and the space through which light moves. These paintings shown today are part of that effort. Most people see them as “abstract paintings”, but I do not.
Space is where things are or can be and a painting is an object in space as a solid. You can hang it on your wall, you can hold it in your hands; you see it. Even the pigments that are spread over the surface are three-dimensional objects. No matter how thin the layer of paint is, it still has a width and occupies space. One may not perceive it at a human scale but at a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a centimeter, a size that you cannot see, it still has a width and can be measured. But skip all of this because it is not the painting you are interested in, it is the art because that is what the brain creates.

So what do these paintings represent? They represent space through which light moves. Some layers are transparent, light moves through them. Some do not allow light to go through them, so light will move over their surface and illuminate them. They are opaque and light scatters over them just like water flows over sand on a beach.
These paintings do not represent objects, they represent spaces that are occupied by light and stimulate the viewer to create representations of space, sometimes a three-dimensional space, sometimes the overlapping of two planes, and sometimes the blurriness of motion. Motion in space is the uncertainty as to where an object is. The object in motion is always beyond where you think it is. The space is blurred.
While every viewer knows that the painting is on a flat surface, he will still see it move back and forth, and has a depth and distance that will create a pleasing combination of colors and may even evoke memories from childhood or create a feeling of protest or approval.
What these paintings may represent is up to the viewer. To me they represent spaces where light is or can be. They are as representative as a portrait of a young woman with a red hat.

Felix de Quesada has exhibited at:
Bergamot Station in Santa Monica, California
Gallery “C”, Hermosa Beach, California.
Orange County Fine Arts Gallery, in Costa Mesa, California
Los Angeles Municipal Gallery, California
At Anaheim Gallery, California.

He has received a Second Place and Third Place award at Orange County Fine Arts among other honorary awards.

Some work examples – To enlarge or watch the slide-show, click on one of the images, please.