ISAAC E. JOHN LEWIS
Isaac John Lewis was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1961. He studied in the oldest art academy in Cuba: "San Alejandro", where he graduated in 1984, starting his career as an artist. Between 1984-87, he worked with children in cultural events in the Lenin Park “Bellas Artes” museum, and in schools with the singer Teresita Fernandez. He also worked with a small group of poets, singers and actors as part of a series of community artistic events in small theatres, camping, even for young audiences in the army...
For 8 years, Isaac worked with children in the "Jose Marti Pioneers City" in Tarara beach, Havana. In the beginning painting murals, and after a few years in events and activities related to visual arts, first with Cuban “pioneers” and then with children from Ukraine, victims of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
His themes have always included scenes of old houses and music. After meeting Dale Fitzgerald, founder and general director of The Jazz Gallery in New York, during a Jazz Festival in Havana, jazz became the main subject of his work. That year Dale invited Isaac to be part of the 1st International Jazz Art Competition 'INJAC 1996”. He sent several paintings and got received an Honorable mention for a oil on canvas named "Inspiration", which was published in the “Jazz Times” magazine, issued May 1999.
His works have been mostly about jazz in pieces that look like stain glass, beautiful fading old houses and or both subjects mixed, such as musicians or musical instruments with an old house in the background. Subjects also include embracing figures, mostly humanized trees.
He did some artistic pottery resembling old broken houses. In 1998, one of his pieces was awarded best hand painted ceramic.
Isaac has been painting and exhibiting his work mostly in Canada since 2005, focusing his art on Jazz music and the beauty of decaying old Havana. In 2007 he made two new series of paintings one dedicated to the beauty of the old walls in Havana and another as a tribute to his friends, the long time jazz dancers of Santa Amalia, in Havana. In the last few years, he has introduced the beauty of BC and the alleys of east Vancouver in his art.
In the last few months of 2020, paintings on life edge wood and strings instruments built from live edge wood are a new part of his work.
His work can be found in private collections in Spain, Canada, Portugal, Brazil, Norway, U.S.A., Mexico, England, France, Germany, Holland, Russia, Ukraine, South Africa, Japan and other countries.