Peña, René

Cuban artist born in 1957. He took his first photographs with the family camera when he was eight years old, although he had not received any formal instruction in photography. He studied foreign languages at the University of Havana. Even though he rejected the notion of purely aesthetic photography, Peña was never interested in graphic journalism. From his early solo exhibitions in the early 1990s, it was evident that he was searching for some kind of deeper truth: Stories of the City (1991), Rituals and Self-portraits (1996), Memories of the Flesh (1997), and Burden and Blessing (1998) confirm this.