The Davidoff Art Initiative is sending the Dominican painter Hulda Guzman to Brooklyn, New York, in September as part of the non-profit’s two-year-old residency exchange programme for Caribbean artists. Guzman will spend three months at the International Studio and Curatorial Program where she has said that she plans to focus on art that tells a story.
“Just as the situations of my insular atmosphere were recounted in earlier works, I will now step out of my comfort zone and experience the taste of New York, with its cultural diversity and constant flow of creative energy, and allow it to infuse what I create,” Guzman says.
Since it launched the initiative in 2013, the foundation has doubled the number of residencies it sponsors to four artists in four cities. In addition to Guzman, between this autumn and spring 2016 the organisation will send the Dominican artist Luís Fermín Ceballos to work at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, the Guadeloupe-born artist David Gumbs to Red Gate Gallery in Beijing, and the Dominican artist Guillermo Rodríguez to Atelier Mondial in Basel (the most recent addition to the network of venues for Davidoff residencies).
In the spring, the foundation will also continue its residency programme in the Dominican Republic, whereby an international group of artists works in the studios of the Altos de Chavón School of Design. Davidoff makes tobacco products including luxury cigars.
