HABANA II

Title:​ HABANA II — Le Venezie International Watercolor Festival Overall Third Prize ($500)
Artist:​ Cristina Diez (Spain)
Dimensions:​ 40 × 23 cm
Year:​ 2024
Medium:​ Transparent Watercolor

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About the Artist
Cristina Diez is a Spanish watercolor artist whose work captures the soul of place with warmth, economy, and an instinctive feel for light. HABANA II — a return to the subject of Havana — speaks to the enduring fascination that this city holds for artists: its peeling facades, saturated color, and atmosphere of time suspended between past and present. In the intimate vertical format of just 40 by 23 centimeters, Diez distills the essence of a city into a single, concentrated vision, allowing transparent watercolor to do what it does best — to let light breathe through pigment, and to hold the shimmer of a sun-drenched street in a few luminous, unhesitating washes. Her choice to return to Havana a second time — as the title suggests — reflects an artist's desire not merely to depict a place, but to deepen her understanding of it through the act of painting.