Stolen Paint, 2010
Pavel Acosta
Pavel Acosta is a Cuban visual artist and photographer living in The United States since 2010. Acosta has a Masters of Fine Arts (2003) from the Higher Institute of Arts (ISA), Havana, Cuba. Under the dictatorship in Cuba art supplies are hard to come by, and Acosta develops a method of composing paintings or collages from chips of old paint, flaking off city walls. He explores the boundaries between destroying something, committing a crime and creating an artwork known as “Stolen Paintings” (2008-2010). In his recent works he combines his technique with exact deconstructed reproductions of permanent museum pieces such as Frida Kahlo, Courbet, Vermeer, Van Gogh and Rembrandt.