JOSÉ EMILIO FUENTES FONSECA

José Emilio Fuentes Fonseca, known as JEFF, is a Cuban multidisciplinary artist whose practice is deeply rooted in childhood, memory, vulnerability, and survival. Born in Granma, Cuba, in 1974, JEFF’s early years were shaped by resourcefulness and imagination. Growing up in an environment where children often made their own toys from whatever materials were available, he developed an enduring fascination with objects, transformation, and the imaginative language of play.

His childhood was also marked by profound physical experiences. At eight years old, an accident involving explosives resulted in the loss of three fingers. At nine, complications associated with congenital Kartagener’s syndrome led to the loss of a lung. These experiences of danger, bodily vulnerability, and survival became important dimensions of his artistic consciousness, informing his recurring engagement with childhood imagery, damaged bodies, toys, and objects that exist between innocence and menace. His work has been described as substantially autobiographical, although contradictory in many ways because it focuses on the happy moments of childhood that in reality he imagined often times from a hospital bed.

Working across sculpture, installation, painting, and drawing, JEFF transforms found and industrial materials into poetic and often unsettling forms. His practice revisits childhood not as uncomplicated innocence, but as a space where imagination, danger, fragility, humor, and resilience coexist.