DOSSIER (PDF)

Samuel Riera graduated from the San Alejandro National Academy of Fine Arts in the specialty of Engraving in 1999. The following year, he continued his studies at the Higher Institute of Art (ISA), pursuing a degree in Graphic Art. Between 2001-2006 Riera served as Professor of Engraving in San Alejandro. In 2005 he was awarded the Tamarind Institute Scholarship (Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA), dedicated to lithographic studies. In the same year he was granted the Grand Prize for Graphic Art, sponsored by the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation and the Embassy of Spain in Cuba. In 2018, he was awarded with the COUNCIL fellowship (organization based in France) to develop the project: “Art at the Margins of Art” in relation to the creation of art workshops with patients at psychiatric institutions. From 2012 on, Riera developed his open atelier RIERA STUDIO, with the objective of creating an autonomous space for dialogue and cooperation amongst alternative discourses dealing with Cuban art, supporting primarily the presence and development of peripheral (outsider) art beyond the centrist current. Since 2013, he has created and organized Art Brut Project Cuba, aimed at building an action program throughout Cuba that recognizes, catalogues, supports and advertises the work of Cuban Art Brut creators. Art Brut Project Cuba is an independent project that undertakes actions parallel to the Cuban artistic mainstream.

Samuel Riera has taken part in more than one hundred collective exhibitions in Cuba and internationally. Currently he is exhibiting his work at the permanent collection of the First Museum of Cuban Art in Vienna, Austria, as well as in the collection of the New York University. His work is held in personal collections in Spain, Denmark, USA, Japan, Venezuela, Costa Rica, South Africa and Cuba. Among others, his works have been exhibited at Wilfredo Lam Center of Contemporary Art (Havana, Cuba), Casa de las Américas (Havana, Cuba), Visual Arts Development Center (Havana, Cuba), Center of Contemporary Art (Mérida, Mexico), Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (San José, Costa Rica), Salon International of Paris at Gallery Nesle Espace (Paris, France), Grand Foundation León Jiménez (Santiago de los Caballeros, República Dominicana), Espacio Aglutinador Gallery (Havana, Cuba), Art Museum of the Americas (Washington DC, USA), National Gallery of Honduras (Tegucigalpa, Honduras), Museum of Contemporary Art of Taipei (Taipei City, Taiwan), Miami Hispanic Cultural Arts Center (Miami, USA), Diocesan Museum of Terni (Terni, Italy) and Brandt-Roberts Galleries. (Columbus, USA).