Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner
Catalogue Essay
This painting is a metaphorical definition of a dictator. The work depicts the two main components of the dictatorship. On one hand, the followers, who are the majority. They are the force and the support of one man’s ideas. On the other hand, somebody who is possessed by an enormous ego, completely submerged in his inner world. The shells represent the hidden side of the human beings. In the group of people, the shells are hiding their legs. The legs are the locomotion, they move slowly. They are admiring and applauding the one who is at the podium. In the dictator, the shell hides his head, his brain, and his thoughts. The head hidden inside his body is talking to himself like a monologue. This painting is based on my own experience of living in Cuba for 35 years, in a totalitarian regime controlled by one man. This is a very recurrent issue in the universal history, and it is very striking for me—the fact that one man could make his dreams with the energies of others' minds. Carlos Estévez, 2013