Long Weekend Art Gallery
A curated space celebrating creativity and connection — showcasing contemporary works of the artists of the chosen destination.
Featured Artist: Reynerio Tamayo, Havana
Our first featured artist at the Long Weekend Art Gallery is the painter Reynerio Tamayo. We were introduced to Tamayo on our most recent visit to Havana. We were able to spend many days with him, touring his painter friends' galleries and locations of the City which have been particularly inspiring to him. The highlight of our time with Tamayo though, was at his own Gallery, which doubles as an art school and theatre for Children. His Gallery is a sanctuary of hope, expression and opportunity through art, for many kids in Havana. We are honored to share his art here in San Francisco, and we’re pleased to be able to provide support to his ongoing work with kids in Havana.
Artist Overview
Tamayo has consistently positioned himself as both chronicler and satirist within the Cuban artistic tradition. His work integrates narration and humor as fundamental tools, offering a perspective that is simultaneously critical and celebratory of Cuban identity. Over the course of his career, Tamayo has engaged deeply with the contradictions of Cuban society, foregrounding cultural values, collective memory, and the everyday experiences of his people while remaining independent from ideological or stylistic alignments.
Central to Tamayo’s practice is a relentless artistic discipline, one that transcends temporary fashions, political discourse, or the commodifying pressures of tourism. His limitations and personal struggles, rather than restricting his expression, have become a generative force that propels his constant reinvention. In this sense, his art resonates with a broader Cuban ethos: the desire to transcend temporal conditions and assert continuity in the face of historical instability.
Intertextuality, repetition, and irony emerge as symbolic strategies in Tamayo’s oeuvre, situating his work within the unique historical and geopolitical context of the island. Cuban history, often described as immobilized or aplatanada, nevertheless pulses with hope and a capacity for renewal. Tamayo reflects this dynamic by articulating both collective and individual efforts toward emancipation and creative resurgence.
His art, forged in dialogue with cultural resilience, engages directly with the forces—political upheavals, natural disasters, and social transformations—that shape Cuban life. Through his work, Tamayo demonstrates how artistic practice becomes both memory and celebration, integrating traditions such as rum and festivity into symbolic expressions of identity. This cultural synthesis, maintained over more than twenty-five years, defines his production as a profound contribution not only to Cuban art but also to the anthropology of culture itself.
As our first featured artist at the Long Weekend, we are pleased to present nine of his works. Visitors to the Gallery at the Long Weekend can enjoy his art while sipping on the cocktails and spirits featured by him on canvas. Studio quality prints of the art are available for purchase at the gallery, and at the culmination of the show, the art will be sold at a closing auction. 100% of the proceeds of the art is donated to Tamayo’s art school for children in Havana.