The Boca Raton Museum of Art is presenting Deep Line Drawing, an exhibition by Carlos Luna

Deep Line Drawings will be at the Boca Raton Museum until December 31, 2017. Carlos Luna looks to the artistic roots of his native Cuba while simultaneously infusing influences from Mexico. The exhibition features a new body of work on "amate" paper, which is handmade in Mexico from natural tree bark following a practice that dates back to Pre-Columbian times. He then applies paint, scrapes it away, and continues to build up layers that result in subtle surfaces and refined images. "Deep Line Drawings is about the line underneath the surface," Luna says about this exhibition, "underneath the skin." Carlos Luna left Cuba in 1991 at age 22, lived in Puebla, Mexico for eleven years and since 2002 calls Miami home. His harmonizing of these rich artistic traditions combined with life in Miami produce vibrant imagery in the vein of the rural pictographic history with contemporary tendencies. Luna's work is semi-autobiographical and reflects the influence of the three countries where he has lived, in particular the rural Cuba of his childhood. Luna grew up in an area where the beliefs and culture of the Cuban descendants of African Yoruba culture are particularly strong. The sacred forest is home to medicinal plants and the deified ancestors, orichas, whose symbols often appear in Luna's work. Eyes are a recurring theme, reflecting both the watchful government as well as Eleggua, the Afro-Cuban trickster god who observes human folly and accomplishment. Luna's recurring patterns and sinuous lines reflect the energy and rhythms of the lively guajiro music of his childhood. This area of the countryside is also known for producing the high quality tobacco used to make the famous Havana cigars. This is another motif that shows up in Luna's work, sometimes in the mouth of the mustached guajiro man on horseback. Another common theme is the small but brave and feisty rooster, a symbol of Cuba and a kind of alter ego for the artist. The exhibition includes paintings and drawings, and an installation of ceramic plates placed on a newly painted mural.