David Beltrán (La Habana, 1978) is a Cuban artist mainly working with photography, painting and installation. He started studying art at 12 years old age, in the “20th of October” Elementary School of the Arts in Havana, continuing to Havana’s San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts, and later to the Higher Institute of Art (ISA) also in Havana.
As part of Edgar & David duo (2000-2005) he started to develop his first site specific installation works and at the same time he became part of Enema Collective guided by Cuban artist Lázaro Saavedra. The starting point for this group was to interpretate certain historical performances by translating them into a collective experience. In 2005, Beltran became part of Golden Popeye´s Theory group, a multidisciplinary project (concerts, radio interventions, TV, newspaper) that departing from a rock band format and using accionism and noise aesthetic became a sort of icon for the generational dissatisfaction of that time.
In 2007 Beltran started to work independently, exploring photography and painting. In his wide photographic series “Fragments of Infinite” he propose a sort of “Founded Paintings”, which are fragments of a reality that he has emptied of narrative and history, by modifying scale, angle or orientation. These series can be also like a quotation to an art movement or a recognized painter.
Despite its abstract appearance, some of his works are a also registration of an action. This is the case of “Immersed Feelings”, “Breaths of Life” and “Burnt Paintings”. They register the essence of a feeling and color as a result of an experience. He has shown in: Fundación Ludwig de Cuba, La Habana, Cuba 2001; Galería Habana, La Habana, Cuba, 2002; 8va Bienal de la Habana, La Habana, Cuba, 2003; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Triennale Bovisa, Milán, Italia, 2008; Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales, La Habana, Cuba, 2011/2014; Fototeca de Cuba, La Habana, Cuba, 2014; Museo de Arte de Caguas, Trienal Poligráfica, San Juan, Puerto Rico,
2015; Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, La Habana, Cuba, 2017; ESMoA, Los Ángeles, USA, 2017; PAMM, Miami, USA, 2017; Biblioteca Nacional de Cuba, 2018.