Ignacio Fernandez was born in Camagüey, Cuba, in 1945 and moved to California in 1960, shortly after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. He earned a degree in architecture from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo University in 1976 and practices architecture in Santa Monica. As a child he loved to draw, spending solitary hours illustrating stories that he conjured in his mind. His passion for drawing never faded, and he has filled many notebooks with pictures and words during his frequent travels.
In the 1990s he joined ADOBE LA, a collaborative of artist and architects documenting how Latinos appropriate the public and private spaces of Los Angeles to express their identity and culture. After separating from the group, he revisited the island of his birth and embarked on the series of colorful paintings and collages and personal narratives that became Azúcar, Tabaco, y Café.
Suffused with warmth and sharp-eyed vitality, the images and texts evoke an imaginative child growing up in revolutionary times and a witty, irreverent sensibility coming to terms with the ambiguities of Castro’s legacy and his own Cuban-American identity.
Azúcar, Tabaco y Café is available from your favorite bookstore or online book seller or direct from the publisher; please add $5 for first book, plus $4 for each additional book, for packaging and postage.
