The Annual La Aurora Contest is held in Santiago de los Caballeros, on the initiative of Mr. Eduardo León Asensio.

The history of one of the artistic competitions by private initiative of greater permanence and perseverance in Latin America begins.

This first contest counted with John Baur, Pedro René Contín Aybar and Jaime Colson as Award Jury.

Paul Giudicelli is based on geometric abstraction for the interpretation of the subject, who is at the same time sorcerer and bird Recreating elements of the Taíno and African pictography. Giudicelli developed a work focused on the concern to investigate its roots and articulates an expression that seeks to formulate keys of the Dominican modernity and reconstructs an identity from the remnants of the Taíno and Afro-Caribbean cultures.

Clara Ledesma expresses herself in a drawing with symmetrical composition, with three zoomorphic figures that sprout vegetally and are loaded with leaves. The main figure is located in the center and a half moon or canoe with five heads. On both sides of it the bodies of birds with six pairs of faces each.

José Cestero, in an expressionist drawing, depicts a child holding a toy with wheels, using only ocher and gray tones. On the bottom right there is an inscription of the artist that reads: Study for a child with a toy.

Guillo Pérez is based on a simple composition in this abstract work, offering a vision of mass, informal, material, rounded, with resplendent details of chromatic ranges dispersed in its center and dark and reddish in the surroundings. Its title refers to the processes by which an object or entity changes shape. Pérez is one of the first national artists to make an approach from abstract painting.

Leopoldo Pérez (Lepe) moves away from the naturalistic representation and manages to capture in a fragmented way and delineated his characters, managing to intensify the images of reality. It presents the context where the figures are found as ruinous and decadent, defined expressively by lines that seem to allude to a construction. This work, made from combinations of yellow, white, gray and black.

Gilberto Hernández used a background of sepia and ocher tones with a vigorous stroke to create this abstract painting on paper, in the central part there is a large yellowish spot with blasted color that appears as a flash of luminosity in the dark background. In this the artist attends to elements of form, color, structure and proportion.

Omega Peláez uses the expressionist language carved in wood. The theme associates two indigent human figures, thin and pensive, sitting on a log of a large trunk, to which they are associated: the smallest bent with arms on the knees and the second, with one of his hands on his head raised and a hollow oval representing a mouth in tears. The figures are carved with incisive, continuous and vibrant marks.

Luis Martínez Richiez presents his sculpture in a vertical and narrow form, which emerges from a square base as an abstract body, curvilinear, stylized and geometrized in areas that express incoming and outgoing rhythms. This carved piece offers the impression of a plant germinating totem.

Gaspar Mario Cruz offers us the theme of a human group, where a family group is formed: the woman with her hands on her head and the man playing a flute. In another area, a second woman carries objects. Laterally and at the foot of the base, a face or mask with African characters appears, which are also projected on the other figures. Family It is a sculpture of cylindrical and organic shapes, characteristics that identify the work of this artist.

Domingo Liz, offers the scene of three human figures, thin, naked, with black features and sitting on a pier, where they fish. Water, reeds, fish and sky with sparkles, complements the agenda in this horizontal composition drawing.

Domingo Liz, His sculpture Origin is a clear example of this artistic path. A carving of a single piece of wood refers to the organicity of a uterus or a vegetable pod, an allusion simulated in the title of the work. This sculpture, fundamentally abstract due to the fact that Liz proposes, above all, the reconfiguration of essential forms, refers to the origin of man and nature.

Domingo Liz was born in Santo Domingo in 1931. He is a sculptor, painter and draftsman. He graduated from 1949 at the National School of Fine Arts and received special guidance from the sculptor Manolo Pascual. From 1950 to 1953 he did postgraduate studies in painting with Jaime Colson. In 1968 he was a founding member of the Proyecta group. He presented his first solo exhibition at 1971, at the then Gallery of Modern Art, now the Museum of Modern Art in Santo Domingo. Liz is one of the indispensable Dominican creators when critically and reflexively evaluating the history of national art. His role as a multidisciplinary artist, provocateur of ruptures and deeply coherent, adds to the importance of his renovating role and his position as a teacher of generations. His research with sculptural materials guided him on the path of search for abstraction, in an attempt to free himself from the marked references of his masters. Thus, it develops a work of great synthesis and economy of means, delving into the possibilities of materials (mainly metal and wood) and devoting special attention to the inquiry into the formally organic.

Ada Balcácer was born in Santo Domingo in 1930. He studied at the National School of Fine Arts between 1947 and 1951, under the guidance of teachers José Gausachs, Gilberto Hernández Ortega, Manolo Pascual and Celeste Woss and Gil. Later he traveled to Puerto Rico and was part of the Mural Workshop, under the direction of the Spanish painter Eugenio Fernández Granell, at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras campus. In the city of New York, where he moved next, he continued his studies in painting, while working in the fields of engraving and design. In 1962, after the execution of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, he returned to the Dominican Republic and enrolled in cultural movements and political and artistic militancy.

The second edition of the Contest, which until 1971 had an annual character, was held a year later as a result of the April Revolution of 1965 and the American military intervention.

As in 1964 and up to the 2000, the contest admits three genres as categories of participation> Painting, Sculpture and Drawing.

John Baur, Pedro René Contín Aybar and Jaime Colson were present as award judges; who were also sworn in from the previous version

Domingo Liz, carved wooden sculpture formed by three structures of different sizes, two of which are combined in the concavity of the major and create an alternate non-symmetrical rhythm. With treatment of cracks and reliefs internally and externally, it produces the sensation of representing assembled shells, germination or larvae in a dialogue of encounter.

In Homenaje al Greco, Guillo Pérez recognizes the legacy of the Greek-Spanish artist from abstraction. This piece has been executed with several chromatic ranges, predominantly red and black. Perez, with a fruitful pictorial career and important contributions in the plane of abstraction in the Caribbean, raises in this canvas a metaphorical approach to the body of work of El Greco.

Vicente Pimentel is the author of this work, in which the images of a woman and a child appear, captured with a monochromatic character and with the singular stroke of Pimentel. In the scene depicted, the child appears at the moment he tries to let go of his mother's hand.

Pimentel gives the drawing a preeminent place in its plastic exercise, achieving excellence in this artistic practice. Almost all his drawing production is characterized by being monochrome and because his figures appear defined by colored spots and wavy and nervous lines.

Fernando Peña Defilló alludes in this work to the origin to the genesis of existence. Formally, in the fabric appears a red circle framed in a gray circle on a background with textures and stained gray and black. In the central area a sphere with a lighter tone (gray) is shown in equilibrium, centralized and within it appears the small red dot located in the upper right corner.

Felix Gontier is the author of this abstract painting with shades of yellow, brown and red. The conjunction of organic forms composes to the naked eye an anthropomorphic figure whose round masses: breasts, belly and legs show a female body. Behind the figure a quadrant of thick black lines, centralized, divides the background that is tinged with sepia and ocher tones.

Leopoldo Pérez (Lepe), is an artist that both from the artistic exercise as the teacher (as Professor of the National School of Fine Arts and the School of Art of the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo) established a very particular language. This work, Jauría devouring a bull, is a painting of horizontal composition, of warm tones and an almost abstract formalism. A series of rhythmic rising vertical planes and lines appear from right to left (vertical concentric arcs in the form of waves) and interposed with curved patterns that concentrate drama, dynamism and action. The scene recreates a lying bull devoured by a pack of wolves whose heads and bites are semi-visible. Lepe, an artist committed to the causes and anxieties of his people, presents his surroundings, reality and culture in most of his plastic productions.

Guillo Pérez works in this abstract work with a constructive composition, with a fine texture and sober chromatization. Made in vertical format, it is divided into two unequal areas: a broad, creamy upper plane with a vertical gray stripe at the far left. In the lower plane two horizontal stripes in red and black.

Guillo Pérez studied painting at the School of Fine Arts of Santiago de los Caballeros in 1950. He studied painting in the workshop of Yoryi Morel, where he worked the natural landscape. In his pictorial career he has used the languages ​​of abstraction initially and later and to date he assumes figuration as an expressive way.

Andrés Araujo is the author of this sculpture of abstract tendency, allusive to a social issue and raised with non-human organic forms. Thanks to its large curved cavities, holes and other geometric elements, it facilitates light effects. The black treatment of the wood, the rusticity of its interiors and the external polish strengthen the author's lyrical intention.

Thimo Pimentel uses precise lines, highlighting and diffuse to define the figure of a monge in prayer activity, embodied with a volumetric and expressionistic abstract figure.

Thimo Pimentel is a Dominican graphic artist. He trained with the creators Gilberto Fernández Diez, Paul Giudicelli, Eva Kaufmann, Joan Llacer, Rikio Hashimoto, and studied at the Madrid school of ceramic Moncloa, in Madrid, Spain (1986-1990). He was part of the Proyecta group. Outstanding drawer, he has worked in stone, plastic materials, glass, textiles, metals, and ceramics since the sixties. He has participated in more than forty individual and collective exhibitions. It has prizes, distinctions and recognitions received in contests held in the country and abroad. He is President of the Igneri Foundation / Art and Archeology; as well as the creator of the International Triennial of Ceramic Tile (elit-tile).

In this third edition, six prizes are awarded for the Painting category, two more than those established by the Contest in its previous contests.

Michael Irving, Héctor Incháustegui Cabral and Pedro René Contin Aybar were selected as the Award Jury.

Macial E. Schotborg with ink on paper expresses a monochromatic image where two people are seen, one with the hand to the ear and the other making a gesture of scream.

Cristian Martínez (Crismar) creates this work from a composition of geometric and abstract elements defined by four segments forming a vertical rectangle a space with marked futuristic dyes. As a whole, a symmetrical shape with red, yellow, gray and black colors that looks like a cabin or capsule can be seen. It follows in this piece his tendency to build the works from pictorial modules, in this case with cardboard base.

Cristian Martínez Villanueva -Crismar- is a Dominican artist whose production covers monumental and environmental works, was born in Santo Domingo, in 1939 and studied basic studies in the Dominican Republic. Then he left for Italy where he finished his degree in Architecture, Art and Set Design. Many of its large-scale projects participate in the urban space of Santo Domingo. He has exhibited in collective and individual exhibitions in Italy, France and Israel. In the III Eduardo León Jimenes Art Contest, he won the second prize in painting with the work Espacio Capsula. He participated in the XLIII Venice Biennial, coinciding with the beginning of a creative stage of metaphysical conception. One of his most recent artistic projects is called "Tureiro: Areyto of the Earth and the Sky. Taino mythology ", which consists of illustrations and texts about Taino mythology.

Elsa Núñez creates a striking painting with this work, the author, who belonged to one of the groups of artists who were configured as an alternative to cultural production in the sixties, chose as the protagonist of his work the woman, and especially the working woman The theme defines three feminine figures in a symmetrical position. With accentuation of the black in the drawing lines, it achieves a dramatism in the feminine figuration. The characters are involved in a nostalgic and dark atmosphere, in a representation that reaffirms the idea of ​​the role of women as a provider of food and life-giving in times of social upheaval. The work is executed in oil and is related to the social expressionism of the sixties.

Elsa Núñez was born in Santo Domingo in 1943. He studied Philosophy at the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo and made his artistic studies at the National School of Plastic Arts in his hometown; and at the San Fernando Academy, in Spain. His pictorial work is characterized by a special emphasis on images of expressionist cut.

Cándido Bidó executed the work in oil Laundresses, with strong textures with mixed material and ranges in blue, white, yellow, black and red. Its composition defines the scene of three women. Two of them spread a white cloth and the third one observes them. Next to the woman on her back is a drawer with a container to wash. They complete the composition of walls and a door of a room that highlights a black background. This work of Bidó moves by its rawness. Once again, it is the woman, an important part of the family, who generates the means of living through her work.

Candido Bidó is a Dominican painter born in Bonao, in the year 1936. His work as a prolific artist and cultural manager has positioned him in an important place within the historiography of national art. Cándido Bidó's work is full of characters that represent the distinctive Dominican, representative of the peasants and women of the town. Likewise, his pictorial works endorse the customs and avatars of these characters. The work in the field, the daily tasks, the enjoyment, and the singing of hope and life are constant elements of his paintings.

Guillo Pérez, in this work, constructs the scene from color planes with intense and arrogant strokes, the lower part with three horizontal stripes: red, black and blue. On these in greater proportion a clear surface with vertical gray spots. It is from this fragmentation that an apparently marine scene is constructed where two sailing boats sail in the tranquility of the waters.

Guillo Pérez is an artist from Santiago who was established as one of the initiators of the abstraction in the country. From the language of abstraction Guillo recomposes the spaces of his environment.

Fernando Peña Defilló reflects his culminative informalist cycle in this painting, as well as his reencounter with the Dominican medium after his period in Spain. The work, abstract, constructive and with kinetic effects, is characterized by a background of alternating black and gray lines and verticals to which a thick transparent strip and a large centralized circle superimpose, with effects of informal spots with a white central point.

Josefina Romano Pou, plasma in the central part of the paper to a girl, sitting and with one hand on her face.

Máximo López shows his love of primary and aboriginal art. In this work it is evident its reference to the lines of force of these styles and their possible relation with the cubist statuary. In this sculpture, the extemal synthesis of its forms carries a sense of original schematization, within a generalized formal conventionalism of sculptural figuration. This is a stone carving representing a human figure with features similar to sculptures typical of precolonial Latin American cultures.

Iván Tobar creates this representative drawing of a change of surrealist orientation of the author, characterized by a poetic full of neatness in the bill and ambiguous suggestions. The work is divided by two planes. In the first, to the right, a three-step staircase is displayed. In the second, an organic element, punctual and sensual, balances with its geometric shapes and with the cube that, elevated, expands above the steps. The work of the drawing, polished and of a great sharpness, proposes a metaphysical scene in which the spatiality is explored. Likewise, the author alludes to an impossible staircase, which confuses the viewer with his own situation, creating the visual enigmas that give his work an unmistakable stamp.

Iván Tovar was born in San Francisco de Macorís. In 1963 he arrives in Paris, where he lives for about 20 years. Critics inscribe their painting in the new surrealism, although their compositions unfold an extremely personal symbolic world.

Guillo Pérez, as a painter, pays special attention to his landscape environment. Hence, rivers, rural and urban landscapes will occupy much of their production. This is denoted in Images of the Yaque River he composes from a color fragment a representation of the margins of this fluvial body. In this representation based on abstract geometric bodies of the Yaque River, orange tones stand out for the sky and blue, black and white for the river. This painting is manifestly gestural with large horizontal color spots. It is also important the theme chosen by the author since the Yaque is the river on whose bank the city of Santiago is developed. This work won an award IV Art Contest Eduardo León Jimenes in 1968.

Cándido Bidó captures his characteristic style using a variety of shades: blue, yellow, white, red and violet. In this work, he uses a composition divided into planes and masses accentuated by a drawing or precise drawing, offering the scene of women on the back, barefoot, covered with cloths and carrying bundles of clothes.

Luis Martínez Richiez uses mahogany in its natural color to create this sculpture of abstract language and informal geometric shapes, with empty sprouts, raw remarks of the chisel and characterized by four culminating points.

Jorge Severino creates this work on paper, where it is observed in the center of it, a black woman sitting on a chair and with both hands manipulating a rosary on her legs. In the background, confused with the wash of watercolor, a couple talks. The black contours that delineate the figure of the woman are accentuated.

Jorge Severino is an artist from Puerto Plata whose pictorial work focuses thematically on blackness. His formal and conceptual search around the racial components of Dominicans brings him to works such as The Prayer where the ethnic and cultural components are shown.

Josefina Romano Pou, plasma on paper the image of a woman with one of her hands covering her mouth. The contrast between the yellow of the face and the dark of the headdress and background accentuate the expressionism of this image. Also this use of contrast presents a character that appears as snooping or commenting on a situation.

Rosa Idalia García, for the theme of this work, is inspired by the seed of "Ojo de Buey", which is heated by rubbing it in stone. The author recreates its circular shape, brown, accentuating it with a yellow outline, in a simple composition with an abstract result. Complement of this form is the blue background interfered by the logotype signature.

José Cestero makes a gestural drawing, which shows a character sitting in the center of the composition with the inscription on the top left that reads: "Study for fantastic figure in interior". The delicacy of its line and the subtle stains of color add to this vision of the author's portrait. The artist combines an ocher atmosphere granted by the work's own support, the blacks and grays and whites that define the figure alone.

By decision of the Award Jury, the 1er. This year's prize in the Sculpture category was declared desert.

Nazario Ramos is the author of this vertical abstract wooden sculpture with undulating shapes and thirteen holes. Its realization part of the direct wood carving. By working block wood, you get organic volumes, soft and contoured lines that contribute to perceive the values ​​of tactility and sensoriality that we often associate with the human body.

Aquiles Azar García creates a linear drawing very synthesized and even compositionally simple with its two planes, locating in the first a trio of containers (jug and bottles) drawn with informal pulse, spontaneous and detached from realistic verismo. This drawing worthy of a first prize marks the decided artistic and public resumption of its author.

Hilario Rodríguez expresses his concept of Cibao in this painting of oil on canvas, where warm colors predominate.

By decision of the Award Jury, the 1er. Prize of that year in the Sculpture category was declared desert.

For the second consecutive time, the first prize in the Sculpture category is declared void.

The Award Jury was made up of Rafael Squirru, René Taylor and Jaime Colson

Ramón Oviedo expresses, in a close-up of the work, a figure that resembles a scarecrow with arms outstretched in a cross. In the background is represented the nature based on blotches in ocher tones and the sky in yellow tones.

The extensive artistic production of Ramón Oviedo is a reflection of deep and productive discursive unfolding, where the man, socially and ideologically engaged, dialogues with the producer of artistic forms and languages. This cardinal artist for the history of Dominican art, has a great aesthetic heritage of the artistic avant-garde, modified by the constant search for different forms of expression that are coupled to the questions of their social being and their personal communication needs. Most of Oviedo's work focuses on social issues. The Dominican people, insular humanism and poverty are part of their repertoire.

Leon Bosch, author of this work, reveals in it the complexity and multiple aspects of the relationship between the artist and his characters. The popular characters Bosch sees on the street are presented from details of his sensitivity. Bosch introduces the theme of women and children in painting, highlighting their social context. This work shows a girl sitting on a chair and at the bottom, on the floor, a basket with lemon grass.

Asdrúbal Domínguez achieves in this work a chromatism of great impact, where yellow, blue, black and red predominate. The author offers a composition of geometric schemes, whose shapes represent the drama of dead birds on a roof. This is an exceptional work in the artistic career of Domínguez, undoubtedly an important icon of the expressionist painting of the sixties in the Dominican Republic.

Asdrúbal Domínguez was an artist of a deep and dynamic social commitment. He participated actively in the April War of 1965 and formed part of his Cultural Front, from where he defended the rights of the Dominican people. This made Domínguez accentuate his commitment to social affairs and, after the US military intervention that same year, he was decidedly combative with his work. The elements of dominance contributed to reaffirm that message of sovereignty that he showed in each one of his works.

Norberto Santana in his works has an artistic language related to figuration in which he places special emphasis on the female figure, this language is reflected in this work, where he captures a naked female figure with an arm on the head and lying on a bed .

Norberto Santana was born in Santo Domingo in 1943. He was one of the last students of Jaime Colson and was among the teacher's favorites.

Rosa Idalia García creates a circular and irregular brown pictorial pictorial representation with the cream-colored central area inscribed on a flat cream-colored background.

Rosa Idalia García, was born in 1945 in Santiago de los Caballeros, her pictorial work has been described as neo-abstract and material by the specialists. His emphasis on geometric figures loaded with distinctive elements refer us to Taíno symbols and to material abstraction.

Felix Brito, depicts a naked torzo of a woman with short hair, with a predominance of blue and yellow tones.

Roberto Flores is the author of this sketch of a face.

José Ramón Rotellini executed this work with fragments of iron subjected to welding, where he presents a couple of men and women holding hands. The sculpture is supported by a flat base of the aforementioned metal, it is appreciable a disfigurement of expressionist character.

Vicente Pimentel presents in his work The vanguard, a bust of a woman of great dynamism and movement. The work establishes a parallelism between its own vision of the future and new forms of social thought. Pimentel, an artist who produces a work full of subjective and poetic referents, establishes in his drawings a constant search for the figure-to-sign relationship. Hence, this piece, of a precision and delicacy of poignant drawing, reflects his interest in establishing the conceptual relations between the image and his poetics of titling.

Vicente Pimentel was born in Santo Domingo in 1947. He studied at the National School of Fine Arts of that same city and at the Ecole d'Art et Architecture in France. Pimentel gives the drawing a prominent place in its plastic exercise, achieving excellence in this artistic practice. His conceptual concerns have been directed to "universalize all Dominican experiences through concepts that he expresses with his art".

Aquiles Azar García, author of this work, monochromatically portrays in it a face in frontal view, with large eyes and a triangular jaw,

The artist Guillo Pérez presents, out of competition, four works of his authorship in the exhibition of the contest. Ramón Oviedo is the winner of the first painting prize for the second consecutive year.

The Award Jury was conferred by Edward Fry, Inocente Palacio and Pedro René Contín Aybar

Vicente Pimentel, for this drawing, uses a variegated and fluid treatment in the use of lines and black spots with extensive sepia domain. Its composition offers the drama of three horses, two of which relink or lament next to the moribund body of a third located on the left.

Bertica García was awarded for being the author of this monochromatic work, made based on human bone forms.

Ramón Oviedo in Get up, Lazaro it uses an expressionist language, characterized in the work by the accented drawing and its ranges in white and blue. The composition, drawn in horizontal quadrants, is composed of three superimposed human figures and a fourth lying down. The central figure expresses the crucifixion and all the characters have anatomical disproportions and exaggerated features. This work refers to agendas on the redemption and liberation of an economically predated people submerged in a convulsive political and social situation.

The extensive artistic production of Ramón Oviedo is a reflection of deep and productive discursive unfolding, where the man, socially and ideologically engaged, dialogues with the producer of artistic forms and languages. This cardinal artist for the history of Dominican art has a great aesthetic heritage of the artistic vanguards, modified by the constant search for different forms of expression that are coupled to the questions of their social being and their personal communication needs. Most of Oviedo's work focuses on social issues. The Dominican people, insular humanism and poverty are part of their repertoire.

Salvador Lara in his work is characterized by organic and natural forms. The use of primary colors that recall the earth, water, the primary and natural environment are associated with the genesis of the origin of life referred to in the title of the work. This pictorial piece is full of symbology; corporeal reminiscences; natural and human elements in conjunction; full of movement and dynamism. Lara poses a metaphor of the beginning of life from a juxtaposition of circular shapes of sinuous lines, structured as incoming and outgoing in shades of blue, yellow and gray.

Jacinto Domínguez began his studies at the Yoryi Morel Academy, where he trained with Federico Izquierdo, Mario Grullón, Negro Disla, among other renowned professors. In 1950 he joins the National School of Fine Arts (ENBA), where he is especially linked to Prats Ventós, with whom he specializes in sculpture; and José Vela Zanetti, who instructed him in mural painting. On his return to Santiago, at 1955, he was appointed professor at the Academy of Fine Arts of the city, an institution of artistic education where he becomes a Director at 1980. The pictorial work of Jacinto Domínguez has gone through different paths, in which he always alludes to the local landscape and the popular characters and traditions, thus registering within the thematic principles of the School of Santiago, of which he is one of the most important continuators . At the same time, he develops a work linked to portrait and religious image, and includes sculpture and mural painting within his artistic practice.

Additional note:

"Chichigua" is a term used in the Dominican Republic to call the kite (toy). It is a flying artifact made with hollow sticks, paper, string and glue. It is a traditional game that receives several names in Latin America: kite, kite, kite, parrot, flask, pizcucha, zamura, flying, among others.

Danilo de los Santos, in that work, offers the scene of four black women. The first on the far right, with black-white print. Nearly two others talking and in the background a fourth, walks. All have white cloths on their heads in peasant fashion and a clear blue sky of evaporated clouds stands out. This painting represents the beginning of the "Marolas", a monothemium of the artist.

Antonio Rodríguez carves a skull with an open jaw.

Vicente Fabré wood carving a skull with the jaw open.

Soucy de Pellerano creates a line drawing that shows a woman sitting on the floor with fishing tools.

Soucy de Pellerano was born in Santo Domingo, in a family of heroes and intellectuals, descendants of Francisco del Rosario Sánchez. He entered the National School of Fine Arts and graduated from 1967, the year in which he presented his first solo exhibition. With Paul Giudicelli he studied directly from 1964 and received a training based on the postulates of geometric expressionism. In his numerous exhibitions he showed the handling of drawing, of painting, and later of sculpture and installations. His sculpture, especially of assembly, is made from waste and materials such as plexiglass, radiographic plates and lights.

Máximo López shows his love of primary and aboriginal art. In this work it is evident its reference to the lines of force of these styles and their possible relation with the cubist statuary. The extreme synthesis of its forms the load of a sense of original schematization, within a generalized formal conventionalism of sculptural figuration. This sculpture, symmetrical and carved in stone, represents, in a very synthesized way, a crucifixion, and linear incisions appear on the cross.

Aquiles Acar García was awarded in this ceremony for this work, this ink drawing, with contours overloaded with lines and with areas where the scriptural medium, is diluted creating eloquent gouaches or spots that strengthen the expressionism of a head whose face is only glimpsed profile.

Thelma Lora using ink on paper creates this line drawing that represents a composition of four snails.

Virgilio Méndez expresses, in the right part of his work, a girl sitting with a cat in the lower part and in his hand a bird. The background of the drawing is made up of a forest

Soucy de Pellerano is awarded thanks to his work. This painting is structured with a division of planes of which two rectangles of black and white stand out as background. Expanded to the same from the first plane are several human figures elongated, geometric, surrealized and expressionist. The piece has purple, yellowish and brown ranges that serve to define the disproportionate vision of a group of ambiguous subjects.

Delia Weber poet, narrator and Dominican painter linked to the school of Aberlardo Rodríguez Urdaneta. The 23 of 1900 was born in October and 28 died in December of 1982. He had a very active participation in the cultural life of the country. She belonged to the board of the Dominican Feminist Action, being a pioneer in the struggle for women's rights. In his work we must emphasize his dedication to the national landscape. Make numerous scenes of the sea and Dominican landscapes. This pictorial scene shows the cliffs and how the waves break in it. The dynamic and loose brushstroke, as well as the juxtaposition of colors, gives this placid image an energetic sense.

Bertica García Alonso shows in this painting of limited colors, an image of a woman as well as the formal features of landscapes and things. On a blurred background in very light tones, three centers of interest are realistically highlighted, forming the image of a woman, of these, the face at the top and a bouquet of flowers stands out below.

Antonio Rodríguez starts from the vision of the landscape as an infinite extension, with a handling of the textures and colors in such a way that things are wrapped in vortices of air and light. His is an emotional vision. In Rodríguez, the natural environment provokes a passionate reaction. This painting represents a sunset. The composition is based on blotches in gray, red and little blue, the sun is centrally located with the most intense color of the work: red.

Antonio Rodríguez (San Francisco de Macoris, 1941 - Santo Domingo, 2000). He studied sculpture at the National School of Fine Arts (ENBA), under the instructions of Antonio Prats-Ventós and Gáspar Mario Cruz. He was a founding member of the Reflection Group. Rodríguez worked wood in abstract solutions that suggest human forms trapped by knots or ties. He taught at the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo (UASD), two of his works are part of the collection of sculptures of that educational institution, these are: 1- Bust of the master Pedro Henríquez Ureña, made on the occasion of the First Centenary of his birth , located in the inner courtyard of the Faculty of Humanities, between Cristóbal de Llerenas and Bartolomé Miter. 2- Luperón, bronze bust donated by the author, the 16 of August of 1986 and located in Avenida Paulo III. In 1970, he received the first prize for sculpture in the VI Eduardo León Jimenes Art Contest, with the work "Semillas sterériles". The following year, in the VII Eduardo León Jímenes Art Contest, he won an award with the painting "Ocaso".

José Ramón Rotellini is the author of this soldier iron sculpture. The three-dimensional piece, of figurative references, has two protagónico elements adhered on a metal base of rectangular outline. In the composition, verticality predominates and a masculine and famished body that appears naked and sits on an irregularly shaped mound is distinguished as a focal point. Some parts of its extremities leave the area defined by the base, aspect that provides movement to the sculptural set and the ungainly character. The volumes, both the body and the element that serves as a seat, are shaped by the conglomerate of small rectangles and thin grooves that allow you to observe the empty space of the interior, this particular finishing detail and the disproportionate size of your feet and hands, endow the character with a spirituality not exempt from symbolism.

José Ramón Rotellini Concepción was born in Santo Domingo in the 1941 year. He made his first studies of sculpture and painting at the National School of Fine Arts, which concludes at 1963. Immediately after, he travels to Spain where he completed higher academic studies that incorporates the language, technique and structure of his speech. His work has been exhibited and distinguished in museums and galleries of art of the country and abroad, among the most outstanding are those that took place in the main hall of the Ponce Museum in Puerto Rico, Main Hall of the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture, Museum of Art Modern of Dominican Republic and in the Boynayel Gallery. Rotellini, is the author of the bronze bust of the hero Juan Pablo Duarte located on the summit of Pico Duarte from 1980, after his donation by the Duartiano Institute. He has deserved important prizes in competitions and biennales of the country, between these they appear the obtained ones in the Contest of Art Eduardo Leon Jimenes in 1969 and 1971. In the 1979 year, he was awarded the Special Prize for Sculpture of the National Biennial of Visual Arts. His sculptures are part of the permanent collections of the Central Bank of the Dominican Republic, the International Bank of New York and the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo.

Among its awards, the Contest awards 5 prizes for painting, 2 for sculpture and 3 for drawing. Two honorable mentions are also given in painting and one in drawing.

For this contest, René Taylor, Edward Fry and Pedro René Contín Aybar are the members of the Award Jury, as in the previous contest.

Alda Ibarra, in this work, provides a plot with linear segments in the form of branches in the foreground in brown tones on an abstract background with blue, green and violet colors where yellowish spots stand out as lights.

Aída Ibarra was a painter who was born in Santo Domingo and was educated in this city with the teacher Abelardo Rodríguez Urdaneta and later in Paris. His work always maintained the simplification and the expressionist use of the form and the free use of color. His theme was originally dedicated to the landscape because Aída Ibarra evolved from a first moment of mimetic representation of reality to a more synthetic and two-dimensional style, with thick brushstrokes and greater color autonomy.

The VIII Eduardo León Jimenes Art Contest is called, but it is not celebrated.

After 10 years of absence in the national artistic scene, the IX Eduardo León Jimenes Art Contest is presented. From now on, it adopts the biennial modality for its development.

The Award Jury of said contest was formed by William Slaterry Lieberman

Radhamés Mejía elaborates a drawing worked in several segments, it is observed as a main figure to a fetus with its umbilical cord, are also part of the composition mechanical parts and indefinable objects.

Baron Arias, in this work uses pointillism to make this portrait of a black woman crossing her arms.

Cándido Bidó was awarded the first place in the category of Painting thanks to this work. The piece is made up of elements typical of rural life. The composition is presented on a support of equal sides, with a predominance of contrasting shades and schematized forms. On the lower register of the work appear several birds in profile position, perched on flowers and located in a space before the other components of the image. In the other areas there are several elevated pigeon lofts and plants delimited by dark lines that cut out their silhouettes on the stylized landscape of the background. The sun is observed in the upper left corner and in its proximity the most illuminated areas are perceived. The birds, free or prisoners, are represented in opposite situations. In both cases, their figures show varied visual textures, especially in the plumage.

Soucy de Pellerano is the author of this abstract painting. The work is geometric chromaticism in pastels, alludes to the machine and water. Its composition in a rectangle offers a break of planes through a thick and dark vertical band located on the right side, which crosses an oval element that is the axis of accumulations of circular shapes, pyramids, curves and lines centered on the support.

Bertica García presents in this painting an old woman seen in profile, dressed in red and holding an umbrella. Although his face can not be clearly seen, his position clearly reveals the expectant sense and determination in the firmness with which he holds the umbrella, and the strength of his silhouette against the background of a sky full of clouds . The posture suggests a laborious character, and the clothing is simple and humble.

Pedro Augusto Méndez realizes this piece carved in wood, the sculpture has a cylindrical shape, slightly inclined and conformed by three bodies with splits of different geometric shapes and differentiated orifices in the extreme and greater structures. In the upper one, the "D" shaped opening and in the lower body the orifice is oval and is located in a concave void. In this work, abstraction predominates as a style.

Ramón Danilo Gómez is the author of this wood sculpture, in the piece it is appreciated in a synthesized way to a family, standing the father and the mother, on the floor on their knees and taking the leg of one of them a son.

Pedro Terreiro is nourished by the environment, the political and social situation in which he lives to react to it through his work. This work is of an abstract nature, so any immediate meaning or figuration is dispensed with. It is necessary to discover in it a hidden writing, an undisclosed language, both perhaps reserved to the intimate sphere of the spectator, to the interpretations of each person who sees it.

José Cestero defines this drawing as a diptych, whose unequal areas are associated by brown tones, the colonial theme, the collage, the italicized texts, the aguada and the name "Mutanville" inscribed with block letters in both fragments. The differences are established by the dimensions and thematic elements, also the composition. The drawing on the right is square and smaller in dimensions, which offers a diluted view of buildings, with a central, small collage and human representation with a dog. The drawing on the left is rectangular, with four collage of sacred images, with caricature drawings in profile and a television performance with self-portrait of the artist. "Mutanville" is a story by Arturo Rodríguez Fernández. The artist Cestero makes variations inspired by the narrative.

A Selection Jury was appointed for the first time, composed of three Dominican specialists. A foreign specialist forms, as the only member, the Award Jury until 1987.

The Selection Jury was made up of Marianne de Tolentino, Rosa Idalia García and Danilo De Los Santos, while the Award Jury was made up of John Baur.

Amable Sterling chooses to represent Icarus through the figure of a slanted man, in this painting of format and horizontal composition in various shades of blue, offers a dynamic composition of bodies that have as axis Icarus, a character from Greek mythology, helped to fly with the loan of a winged plumage. The symbolism of a dove represents, in a work of geometrical and poetic planes, the illumination within a climate of fuzzy and nebulous effects, in eloquent reinterpretation of the mythological theme.

Hilario Rodríguez, in this piece, is immersed in the chaos of the city's traffic, in a real and metaphysical space at the same time, which communicates to the viewer a feeling of recognition of the theme. Rodríguez achieves this by means of a careful geometric composition of the canvas where the upper part is very delimited by a cloud background; from the lower one, by a synthesis of the mechanical details of the car, a hangar and the feverish image of the person who handles it. At the top on a sky with clouds is a sign of "One way" and a paper.

Bismarck Yermeros in this work uses a canvas covered with a thick layer of white lacquer, which suggests in its volume cleaning the importance for the artist of formal and technical experimentation. This pictorial composition is composed of volumes in three segments.

Ramón Osorio Vásquez, in this wood carving, integrates several anthropomorphic and zoomorphic shapes.

José Lantigua Cruz makes this carving in polychrome wood, where he presents a group of players holding on his shoulders another, and this, with outstretched arms, a basketball.

The Award Jury awards honorable mentions in each of the participating categories.

The Selection Jury was made up of Rosa Idalia García, Myrna Guerrero and Mario Grullón, while the Award Jury was made up of John Baur.

José Sejo divides this painting into three segments. The piece contains in the pictorial space several elements in blue and small segments in green, yellow and red, of organic and circular forms, on a background where blue shades predominate.

José Sejo was born in San José de Ocoa, province of Peravia in 1958. He studied at the School of Fine Arts and the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo. His work has a marked organic character and reveals from the beginning a great mystical-spiritual background. This emotional depth is reinforced by its use of color and composition.

Dionisio De La Paz titled this work is called the Myth of Casibajagua and refers abstractly to the Taino myth related to the origin of life, the cosmic axis or axis mundi of the aborigines of our island. The piece has an abstract composition, in which dominates a set of organic forms and brushstrokes located centrally, surrounded by wider planes in shades of orange and violet.

Rafael Santiago presents a landscape in this work, in the upper part the exuberant treetops are shown in front of the blue sky. Reflecting its light from white brushstrokes, a cascade runs over the rocks in the center of the scene, while another cascades on the side, which directs our attention to the river at the bottom. The piece is full of radiance and clarity, which is possible from the use of cold tones, mainly blue and green.

Marcelo Bermúdez, from the natural forms of a root, obtains this abstract sculpture, with undulating inclination and eloquence of the void. It has a small mass or head with an inclined hole and from it ascend two lines that create a large open space and which cross over, offering the sensation of a stylized tail of fish. Its name "Icaro" is related to Greek mythology and to the symbolism of wings, feather, and fall.

Ramón Osorio is awarded for the second place thanks to this abstract work, with asymmetrical undulating form and its greater volume proportion in the upper part.

Gabino Rosario creates this work in pastel and predominantly red and white. In the drawing, of surrealistic tendency, a form stands out as a torn garment, on it an organic form and in the foreground in the lower part a flat wavy like paper.

Pedro Ricart draws, with expressionist strokes, the Dominican flag on the right side of the composition.

The artist from Santiago, Rosa Idalia García participates for the third consecutive time in the Selection Jury.

The Selection Jury was made up of Jeannette Miller, Danilo De Los Santos and Rosa Idalia García, while the Award Jury was made up of Beryl Barr Sharrar.

Carlos Santos Durán uses a vertical composition in a sober chromatization in ocher ranges with abstract-constructive elaboration. Composed in a simple way, it inscribes on a dark or alternate background two structures, with internal illumination. The larger structure, which is the inverted letter "E", is located at the extreme right of the composition and almost covers the extension of the support with its rectangular shape. Superimposed on such a structure is a quadrant also in the form of an "E" extending, almost centralized, from the left end.

Rafael César Fernández Saleta distributes grayish tones on the surface in an abstract way, distinguishing figures with similarity to fish and human forms.

Tony Capellán captures the portrait of a couple in a swirl of color. The couple is formed by a man located towards the left margin and a woman on the opposite side, in both cases the bodies were treated with pale tones that contrast with the irregular colored spots that are scattered over the rest of the work and intervene about the bodies in the chest area. In the composition appear complementary elements of the scene related to each of the characters present, in the vicinity of the man stand a hat that bears the head, a quarter moon waning and several circular elements. Close to the woman there is a reddish solar disk, a fragment of a clock interrupted by the upper edge and a cylindrical object around the right foot.

Tony Capellán was born in Tamboril, in 1955. He studied Advertising Arts at the School of Arts of the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo and the Art Student League of New York. He is a multidisciplinary artist with mastery of various means of artistic expression, among which engraving, drawing, painting, sculpture and installation stand out. For the realization of three-dimensional works uses everyday objects and opportunities solid waste that collects in mouths of rivers, streams and coasts. With the use of these materials, he incorporates into his works a dramatic load of political and social reflection that is inquisitive, sharp and cutting, like the reality he reveals, and whose axis somehow always revolves around the Caribbean as a space of flow and reflux, waste vortex. His pieces deal with the anguish and pain of reality, hunger, poverty, exploitation of man in a region endowed with a natural environment (the sea, light, color) that paradoxically evokes the image of paradise. His works have been widely exhibited locally and internationally and obtained important recognitions, among which we can mention the 2 place in the drawing category (1987 and 1992), the 1er place of sculpture (1990 and 1996) and awards in the XV editions ( 1994) and XVI (1996) of the Eduardo León Jimenes Art Contest.

Genaro Phillips, in this work, joins the figurative drawing with the abstract drawing from vigorous, broad and very marked strokes together with some simple evocative drawings of the national landscape. In this work on paper we can see a surface with expressionist spots in yellow, blue and red, among these several figures of animals and objects have been drawn.

The work of Genaro Phillips has evolved from a more abstract style in his works, which evoke landscape forms and has alternated it with the figurative style.

Carlos Hinojosa shows an anthropomorphic figure representing a woman, there is a lot of use of the curved line, exaggerating parts like breasts, glutes and legs.

Johnny Bonelly conceives this sculpture with a predominance of metal plates and striking chromatic combinations, which define the schematic silhouette of a ghostly character running or jumping. Of surreal language and ludic approach, the figure stands on the tip of a foot, supported on a platform, a resource that allows movement when touched.

Carlos Despradel uses ceramics as the main material for this work, as well as enameling with various shades and firing procedures. Held on a double base of table and marble, stands an oval body, decorated with geometric shapes, crowned with an element reminiscent of a yellow beak of a bird, surrounded by metallic lace, and in proportion to the body the lateral exits of two wings informal, smooth on the inside and scaly on the outside.

Tony Capellán manipulates the polychrome iron to resemble a human figure with arms extended in the shape of a cross and the head facing upwards. In the center of the torso is the dial of a clock of hands. The sculpture is placed on a square base that in turn carries an object of the magic-religious ritual.

Achilles Azar Billini creates this triptych or sequential work on paper that focuses on three different subjects and related by the effects of time as a pronouncing treatment. Work of expressionist character, this language is evident through gestures and blurry blots, arbitrary, graphic and dramatic drawing deformations in the chromatic tones. Species of portraits of memory, they represent the human transformation submitted to the traces of the years passed.

Marcelo Bermúdez wood carving this structure with three points of support on which an undulating amorphous mass rises with two orifices of medium magnitude.

The XIII contest is held this year to coincide with the commemoration of its 25 anniversary. The awarded works were exhibited for the first time in Santo Domingo, in the Casa Rodrigo de bastidas. The Art Museum of the Americas, of the Organization of American States (OAS), extended an invitation to exhibit a sample of the works that participated in this edition at its headquarters in Washington.

The Selection Jury was made up of Jeannette Miller, Danilo De Los Santos and Rosa Idalia García, while the Award Jury was made up of Beryl Barr Sharrar.

Jorge Pineda traces this black and white drawing icon, focuses a character inside a dark pyramidal rectangle, identified only by large and surreal hands, by a winged neck and the face of mulatto features, crossed with strong lines at eye level . The rectangular shape that offers the sensation of a sarcophagus is divided by ribbons dotted in the lower area. From it come long lines that in the upper area harmonize with large "X", informal squares and dotted curved ribbons. Scattered, varied and small scratches, as well as a striking rectangle, complete the composition.

Elvis Avilés constitutes this work by two panels assembled or "diptych", of brown shades and whose theme is a wall full of graffiti, spots and symbols. In the left panel dark "X" and quadrant with a directional cross are imposed. In the right panel several circular symbols and a dripping stain.

Rafael Amable, in this pictorial work, shows his artistic language where he combines the anthropomorphic element with vegetation and fauna. In this piece appear horizontally, with a background of gray and red spots, several legs and hands in blue and red tones. Flanking these segments of the human body appear, very mild, banana leaves that allude to the national vegetation.

Chiqui Mendoza alludes in this work to the Baron del Cementerio, a character or deity product of the magical Dominican religious syncretism, which represents it with three crosses that appear in the upper left corner. The painting is of square format and spatiality in yellow and gray tones, propped with black and white. Its central axis is a lying, elongated fetish of geometric shapes, dominated by blue and around it varied collages: dried flowers, stones, fragments of glass, snails and metal leaves forming a nimbus and other connotative elements of magic, rite and syncretism.

José Perdomo creates this drawing related to the discourse of "Mundo de Jop" (José Perdomo) in which the author refers to ancestral memory and childhood. In the drawing work, the ocher colored paper is a contextual range and the thematic transcribes signs and images that recreate pictography and pre-Columbian objects. In a composition of elements and ordered squared signs, they stand out for their size and vertical rhythm: an Africanist idol (on the right), an anthropomorphic spatula (center) and a spear, on the far left. A whitish halo accentuates and surrounds the mysterious character of some representations.

Tony Capellán is the author of this achromatic drawing of vertical format, the work is characterized by scattered elements over the entire composition. The central element is a rectangular window with light tones, on which a large number of signs and graphics from the work of Tony Capellán are involved. Throughout the perimeter of this window contrasts a frame of dark tones with shapes similar to those of a marine context, among these protrude waves, fish and anthropomorphic figures suspended in that space.

Tony Capellán was born in Tamboril, in 1955. He studied Advertising Arts at the School of Arts of the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo and the Art Student League of New York. He is a multidisciplinary artist with mastery of various means of artistic expression, among which engraving, drawing, painting, sculpture and installation stand out. For the realization of three-dimensional works uses everyday objects and opportunities solid waste that collects in mouths of rivers, streams and coasts. With the use of these materials, he incorporates into his works a dramatic load of political and social reflection that is inquisitive, sharp and cutting, like the reality he reveals, and whose axis somehow always revolves around the Caribbean as a space of flow and reflux, waste vortex. His pieces deal with the anguish and pain of reality, hunger, poverty, exploitation of man in a region endowed with a natural environment (the sea, light, color) that paradoxically evokes the image of paradise. His works have been widely exhibited locally and internationally and obtained important recognitions, among which we can mention the 2 place in the drawing category (1987 and 1992), the 1er place of sculpture (1990 and 1996) and awards in the XV editions ( 1994) and XVI (1996) of the Eduardo León Jimenes Art Contest.

The company E. León Jimenes C. por A. published the book Eduardo León Jimenes Art Contest, 25 years of history, with a text by the writer Enriquillo Sánchez.

The Selection Jury was made up of Marianne de Tolentino, Manuel S. Gautier and Danilo De Los Santos, while the Award Jury was made up of Rafael Squirru, Bélgica Rodríguez and Roberto Guevara.

José Sejo qualifies this painting of white and earth tones, offering a composition of accumulated objects that descend from the upper area, some of which are scattered in an extensive field full of long, choppy brushstrokes, together and that create the impression from a context of guano or palm fibers. Of asymmetric composition, the balance is imposed by a vertical element that, located at the left end, extends from the upper edge to the lower edge where a curved shape seems to limit its fall. Two parallel elements at the opposite end and close to the signature impose the balance to the work of real and magical character.

Chiqui Mendoza creates this work that is at the same time contemporary painting and altarpiece. A rectangular format with a triangle-shaped top termination, in a niche of a table of the same design, superimposed, in which various pictorial and extra-pictorial media make up an interpretive theme of Dominican popular and religious syncretism. On a golden background and full of signs are crosses, images of animals, dolls and other elements. The niche or box is white and accented gray edge, contrasts with the pictorial table. Among them the use of a neon creates ceremonial or sacred climate.

Pedro Ricart makes an assembly or triptych of combined language: abstraction, expressionism and realism. More sustained in the first two languages ​​than in the third, in the first panel (right) presents on the lower edge a girl's face, in small proportion and in contrast the gestural expansion of erasures, gestural signs and chromatic spots: yellow, purple and blue. This last color predominates in the central panel, abstract complement with its other ranges: black and earth, forming a geometric block intervened by other colors. In the third panel (left), domain of the white with large curved fragment where a country landscape can be seen and from the mountains an abstract zone in yellow, blue and red with erasures that expand unlimited.

Said Musa, in this sculpture of complete bulk, poses an allegorical representation to the emergence of the Antillean archipelago. The work consists of a single piece of cast bronze and is made up of a succession of elements with organic shapes that emerge from a rectangular base. The highest part touches the base at two points, in the vicinity of two corners with conical prominences. The elements of greater visual weight are observed elevated on the support. The exterior of the sculpture has a polished appearance, in the joints and narrow places the dark and opaque tones of a patina predominate. The pointed ends and bulging parts highlight the nuances of the metal.

Said Musa was born in Santo Domingo in 1956. He studied plastic arts in the National School of Fine Arts and in the artistic workshop of the master Jaime Colson. He is a multidisciplinary artist, in his professional practice he deals with painting, ceramics and sculpture. He was the artistic director of the National Crafts Center (1983-1986), when he set out renovating designs and started a project to revalue this technique. His works are in commercial and religious buildings; as also, in public spaces and tourist projects. He obtained the First Sculpture Prize in the XVIII and XIX editions of the National Visual Arts Biennial of the Museum of Modern Art and the XIV Eduardo León Jimenes Contest.

Ramón Acevedo Durán opens the possibilities with two possible sides for his observation in this two-dimensional sculpture. The piece was made of synthetic material with transparent, hollow and semi-gloss spaces. On the front and back is the effigy of a young woman with an object on her head, according to the practice they perform in their mobile sales to detail agricultural products or Creole bill. The sculpture has a hollow space in the place that corresponds to the face, intervened by some strands of hair that have been represented moved by the wind. The ballerina appears in a bust that approaches the body from the head to the middle of the chest.

The Award Jury is composed of a Dominican specialist and two foreigners.

The Selection Jury was formed by Laura Gil, Marianne de Tolentino and Myrne Guerrero, while the Award Jury was made up of Rafael Squirru, Darío Suro and Ramón Vergara Grez.

This abstract painting by Chiqui Mendoza is done in brown tones. In its central part there is a concentric circular linear shape and in its outline several crosses and other signs. Like much of Mendoza's remaining work, this work is related to the Dominican-Haitian religious magical complex. To say by the form, this piece mimics a vevé, which is a symbolic and graphic reference of a deity. In this case, the appearance of crosses and black and white colors means an allusion to the Cemetery Baron. This is an appropriation of the graphic element of this syncretic complex that adds to some allusions to zoomorphic elements of the artist's discourse.

Juan Bravo addresses abstract language in this square format drawing made in different shades of gray. The composition has concentric elements consisting of patches of irregular shapes in their contours and solid tonality, circles, bars with transverse lines, a cylindrical block with some perforations that show wear and irregular scattered strokes on the surface. These elements are not limited by the perimeter borders, they expand, leaving open the idea of ​​continuity in the observer.

Kenneth Dames is the author of these 12 plates, each representing a popular scene from the streets of Santiago.

Daniel Osorio uses a range of colors based on intense red that serve as a backdrop to an image of a woman sitting on a chair. The artist describes the woman sitting and lonely as being away from everything around her. The subject of the woman mother or wife was treated by several of his contemporaries.

Tony Capellán, in this painting, addresses the theme of the social diaspora by incorporating symbolic elements related to a specific and contemporary migratory experience. The three panels that make up the work are differentiated by different shades in the background of each one of them. In the first of the three areas, shades of dark blue predominate in the background, over which an airplane appears flying from left to right. The second contains on a whitish background many black hearts scattered around a crown of thorns with spirals inside and a loop towards the lower end. The crown breaks the upper margin of the panel and is located on a centralized cup. The third zone is defined by shades of reddish brown and features the silhouette of a traveler in profile alongside suitcases, sealants and a white palm. The images that make up this work highlight the incessant adversity, elucidate the obsessive and recurring hopes as a consequence of the Dominican migratory phenomenon in its various stages of preparations, departure, travel and arrival. In the work the denotative meanings of the migratory movement are expanded, acquiring the value of an initiative, existential, political or metaphysical journey.

Tony Capellán was born in Tamboril, in 1955. He studied Advertising Arts at the School of Arts of the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo and the Art Student League of New York. He is a multidisciplinary artist with mastery of various means of artistic expression, among which engraving, drawing, painting, sculpture and installation stand out. For the realization of three-dimensional works uses everyday objects and opportunities solid waste that collects in mouths of rivers, streams and coasts. With the use of these materials, he incorporates into his works a dramatic load of political and social reflection that is inquisitive, sharp and cutting, like the reality he reveals, and whose axis somehow always revolves around the Caribbean as a space of flow and reflux, waste vortex. His pieces deal with the anguish and pain of reality, hunger, poverty, exploitation of man in a region endowed with a natural environment (the sea, light, color) that paradoxically evokes the image of paradise. His works have been widely exhibited locally and internationally and obtained important recognitions, among which we can mention the 2 place in the drawing category (1987 and 1992), the 1er place of sculpture (1990 and 1996) and awards in the XV editions ( 1994) and XVI (1996) of the Eduardo León Jimenes Art Contest.

Danilo González is the author of this sculpture with a cylindrical structure, vertical and open mass, full of hollows that allow the play of light and shadow. In a motley of polished and abstract forms, the piece offers the visualization of naked human bodies and in various positions of support and ascension.

Marcelo Bermúdez uses wood carving to represent a seated woman opening her arms and legs.

The Selection Jury recommended the opening to new genres in the next contests.

The Selection Jury was made up of Danilo De Los Santos, Marianne de Tolentino and Manuel S. Gautier, while the Award Jury was made up of Enrique García Gutierrez, Gerardo Mosquera and Edward Sullivan.

Chiqui Mendoza covers this drawing with several plastic folds, it offers sign writing in various shades of brown, reminiscent of oriental calligraphy as well as the playful doodle of a child. On a solid support large curved scratches centralized and in dispersion other smaller, as well as patterned circular stains. The support is covered by a plastic on which is placed a sketched drawing page and a larger plastic fold, both located on the upper edge of the box where they create a set of rectangles moving towards another larger fold that finally covers the work and conjugates opacities.

Dionicio de La Paz is the author of this achromatic drawing, which shows a stone-like background with inscriptions, lines and organic forms in dark tones and cuttlefish acquired by the application of diluted inks. To achieve the textured stone appearance the artist used granulated material alloyed with glue. The semifigurative language drawing recreates elements of plant and animal origin in a jungle context.

Ricardo Toribio, like many contemporary Dominican artists, seeks his references in his reality, environment and traditions. The characters and unique images of Toribio are often imbued with an exquisite poetic inspiration. His work is a combination of evocations, fantasy and folklore. In this painting, from the series Main Games: Dance for Life, Toribio wanted to represent a scene of a gaga, which is a celebration of the sugar centers brought by Haitian migrations, which has been creolized and recreated, resulting in a Dominican gagá. This activity that the artist represents in this work usually takes place during Holy Week, so it has a religious, but also social and cultural; It is done collectively and is accompanied by music, dances, invocations, prayers and songs. In the gaga there is a particular structure of hierarchies, in which the participants perform a certain function and are clearly identified by their colorful costumes and their way of dancing. Among these are the queen, who adorns the parade and dances with the eldest, who is the one who marks the dance and usually carries a whip with which he opens the way. This is a painting in square format executed with yellow, white, red, black and tones in light blue and gray. Four black characters make up a dance movement comparsa with drum beat, whistles and bamboo stick.

Gagá is the name given to a group of people who hold their own celebration of the Dominican sugar centers. This activity usually takes place during Holy Week, so it has a religious, but also social and cultural; It is done collectively and is accompanied by music, dances, invocations, prayers and songs. In a Gagá there is a particular structure of hierarchies, in which the participants perform a certain function and are clearly identified by their colorful costumes and their way of dancing. Among these are the queen, she is the one who adorns the parade and dance in porphyria with the eldest, who is the one who marks the dance and usually carries a whip with which he opens the way. All this based on the principle of reincarnation and the hope that the forces or "mysteries" can improve and renew life. Among its rituals and ceremonies are those of initiation, sacrifice, protection, baptism, blessing and purification. The participation of its members is based on "promises" that last from three to seven years. Gaga music includes: a tambú, a catalié, four or more bamboos or fututos, a homemade trumpet or tua-tuá, maracas or cha-chá, a snail (strombus gigas) and whistles. This practice was brought by Haitian migrations, with time it was creolized and recreated, to result in a Dominican Gagá.

Jesús Desangles, in this painting, uses the expressionist language and a striking chromatic conjugation: blue, yellow, red, white and black; Its thematic composition offers two anthropomorphic, magical and mythological characters in shaken movement. The characters that star in the scene occupy the foreground of the composition of vertical format, in both cases warm tones prevail contrasted with cold tones abundant in the background. Another prominent element in the characters consists of the large-eyed masks worn over their heads, which recreate recollections of sorcerers or African shamans traced in the Caribbean.

José Sejo expresses in the pictorial space several blue and red elements similar to houses and stripes in yellow and black. A circle that inscribes an abstract form can be seen in the upper right. In the lower part there are elements with vegetal forms on a yellow background.

José Sejo was born in San José de Ocoa, province of Peravia in 1958. He studied at the School of Fine Arts and the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo. His work has a marked organic character and reveals from the beginning a great mystical-spiritual background. This emotional depth is reinforced by its use of color and composition.

Tony Chaplain seeks to represent the marginality and pain of a social sector of the third world, achieving this goal in this sculpture-installation defined by a low and round table in which a rusty container or bucket is centralized and inside a royo of barbed wire. Almost on the edge of the table and reiterating the circle 29 flip flops or rubber calipsos whose hooks to fit are wire, connoting the marginality and pain of a social sector of the third world.

Luis Alberto Checo Muñoz is the author of this sculpture in reddish ceramic of vertical composition, defined from a large volume full of graphics and dripping wax and glass. This volumetric mass is crowned by several elements: two forms rounded in symmetry with reliefs that recreate maize ears and among them a small canoe. Crown this form, another more circular with a culminating crescent or representation of a boat, characterized by an overflow of green glass that represents the descending water.

Leo Núñez Genao composes this work as an ensemble, it offers multiple visions of a forest of magical or mysterious atmosphere, executed with ranges of brown, profusion of graphing and dripping lines. In the upper part, there is a landscape of trees and curved trunks, on the hillside on the far left. In the lower part, the sequence of five small landscape views emphasizes the theme of the trunk.

The exhibition of the selected and awarded works took place in the Gran teatro del Cibao, in Santiago de los Cablleros, and in the Casa Rodrigo de Bastidas, in Santo Domingo.

The Selection Jury was made up of Danilo De Los Santos, Myrna Guerrero and Bismark Victoria, while the Award Jury was made up of Belgium Rodríguez, Frederico Morais and Ticio Escobar.

Danilo González executes this work with the ranges: blue, white, black and gray. Its composition in two planes defines a room composed of a large blue wall and a grayish floor where elements that create a metaphysical or surreal climate meet.

Some of these elements scattered on the floor, but the fundamentals are a replay of strings, ties, hanging and rods that move spatially casting shadows that create zonal divisions from a thick white cord in the shape of a "U" very open, choppy by a thick black line that culminates in an abstraction that looks like an animal skin held in the height.

Nelson Ricart offers the vision of the origin of the earth or the universe as indicated by its title "Cosmogonía". Through this work of dense texture and elaboration in an informalist way, Ricart creates a spatial landscape, paved and at the same time sidereal, predominantly gray, where he inscribes eruptions, traces, marks, movements, rhythms, floating and shadows in a climate abstractionist

Carlos Hinojosa is the author of this work in which there is a predominant presence of white, with linotípicas printing of newspapers and various chromatisms: blue, pink, green, yellow and black, this range that defines the contours of various figures composed as scattered portraits and imaginary. In the compositional foreground two women in full body pose. In the background, naked woman playing flute and partner in erotic relationship. Each image has a linear highlight and the fabric on the edges with bands painted green and yellow. The caricature drawing defines the iconographies.

Leo Nunez, for this sculpture, assembles two differentiated bodies: a ledge that is the base, rectangular double level and in proportion an elevated canoe, takes forms that resemble tentacles, having on the right end a talar with metal wing inside and illuminated with blue neon light. On the back a flower. The use of the blue neon also located between the canoe and the base of the ledge creates a breath of mystery and at the same time the symbolic sensation of the water.

José Sejo combines with different materials to make this sculpture, through these assembled elements and objectual style, paraphrasing with a symbolic proposal the marginalized Third World habitat. A large can of sardines with its half-rolled lid contains numerous wooden houses, grouped or very close together.

Ernesto Rodriguez is widely recognized for his work with ceramics. His personal style of working this manifestation combines the imagery of everyday objects and elements with great humor. In this ceramic sculpture and other mixed media, it reproduces an imaginary house with two high floors, windows, rooms in different sizes and a tin roof with two gables. Open, the rooms allow to be appreciated indiscriminately on its four sides that make up the habitat. In them, different objects: jug, ladder, plane, jars, musical instruments, bottles, religious images, animals and inscriptions among other elements. It is a sculpture with the crude color of ceramics and that recalls a primitive tower.

Julio Valdez is the artist behind this drawing of tenuous and varied ranges and profuse siglagraphic graffiti, with a composition divided into two planes. In the upper one, the plane defines a yellowish band with texts made in cursive letters. In the fundamental plane large scattered elements, symbolic or semi-abstract, and in the center a silhouette or torso highlighted reiterative forms, without physiognomic definitions, scribbled and full of blue spots that represent the author.

Rider Ureña is the author of this polyptych consisting of nine drawings placed on a pressed wood surface. The works are defined by spontaneous strokes and patina of sepia tone. The sheets of paper show the margins covered with adhesive tape. In some of the pieces there are representations with shapes that can be related to elements of daily life, such as human figures, stairs, nails, signs, letters, textures and geometric reticles. The piece located in the center of the left margin stands out from the whole, it has an anomaly that consists of a textual inscription, perceptible in red color.

Rider Ureña (Villa González, 1972). He began his artistic studies at the School of Fine Arts of Santiago, and then completed the program of Fine Arts and Illustration at the School of Design of Altos de Chavón, in La Romana. Later he emigrated to the United States of America where he expanded his professional training in various specialized institutions, among which are: Parsons The New School of Design, Art Students League of New York and Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop. In this city he worked as Facilities Manager at MoMA PS1. He currently works in the Visual Arts Division of Columbia University, New York. In 1998, he received the second prize, mention drawing, in the XVII Eduardo León Jimenes Art Contest. He has made several solo exhibitions, and participated in multiple group shows.

Tony de los Santos uses the pastel in this drawing remarkably, in the same poses surreal fauna from a mountainous landscape full of tiny palm trees, in proportion to the animals represented with unusual interpretation: a lizard in the foreground with turtle shell; a giraffe with a man's torso; a mosquito with the body of a bird; another insect with human figuration as well as another animal with a female body sliding down the right side of the interior of the frontal and the first mountainous mass.

The XVIII Eduardo Jimenes Art Contest opens new participation categories: photography, engraving, ceramics and installation. It proposes to the artists a common reflection theme: The Caribbean, everyone's domain. The artists deliver on slides the images of the works that they propose to the Contest, with which the Selection Jury works to issue its verdict. Another modality of awarding is established: seven equal prizes are awarded among the participating works, without distinction of gender.

The Selection Jury was made up of Yolanda Wood, Myrna Guerrero and Sarah Hermann, while the Award Jury was made up of Federica Palomero, Frederico Morais and Danilo de los Santos.

Known as Cayuco, Genaro Reyes in his work is registered for his concerns about the Dominican social reality, marginality, migration and poverty. This is reflected in indocumentados, which is a sculptural work that combines elements of waste, extra-artistic character (meat grinder, a crankshaft, mechanical parts) for the construction of a "yola". Preserving the oxidation of the metallic waste, it is observable part of a machine to grind meat manually, nuts and fragments of different artifacts. This type of boat is the one usually used for illegal trips in which hundreds of Dominicans perish annually. Through the reconstruction of this boat, Reyes reflects on the problem of illegal travel, undocumented travelers and the real causes of migration in our society.

Cayuco It has a great capacity to integrate sources that today add to its artistic production. Anthropology, sociology, history, ethnography, materialized through sculptural constructions presented from a very particular sense of humor. A work not only interesting, intelligent and fun, but full of reflections, humor and social approaches.

Odette Goyco presents this visual capture of the Malecón de Santo Domingo, with three large and symmetrical palm trees dominating the clear blue space of the sky. In the small wall-seat that delimits road and sea, a couple, in mutual contemplation of the horizon. The sepia tone of the elements and subjects represented contrasts with the color of the sky.

Miguelina Rivera was awarded for the first time in the history of the Eduardo León JImenes Art Contest for the installation category thanks to this work. The same, designed to be hung or installed, is constituted by 24 rectangular units of soap pastes of cuaba, almost all with internal incrustations of barbed wires. The set forms a concentric circularity that resembles the fingerprint in personal identification documents.

Carlos Hinojosa is the person behind this assembled painting, the work is divided into vertical fragments and arbitrary solutions that offer abstractions and figurations of primitive style. The graphing, the impressions and the overlays characterize the proposal of chromatism blue, white, yellow, green and other ranges.

Julio Valdez is the author of this horizontal composition drawing, made from an assembly consisting of three images of different sizes. The first offers a paper boat schematized, seen from above, which is the center of a whirlwind of energy lines. The second image is a profile subject in the middle of planes surrounded by metaphorical symbols of longing; and the third image is an abstract representation, of marine and vegetal impression. The drawing is presented on a surface covered in jute cloth, separated from the glass.

The usual invoicing process of Julio Valdez proposes to perform independent works that he incorporates in mosaics, in this case the work has three blocks among which dialogue elements that metaphorically synthesize the identity as a nuclear issue, generating an amalgam between the intimate and the conditioning factors of the social environment. Frequent symbols are distinguished in the composition, with a discourse and constant reading, the mosaic itself is appropriate as a resource to represent the fragmentation and integration of cultural influences in the American continent. The paper boat refers to childhood, the journey and the reflection of memories about to disappear. The silhouette presents a point of synthesis between an autobiographical vision and search for a universal symbol for the common man in a convergent context between physical and spiritual planes. Along with the silhouette superimposed on the schematic landscape can be seen other icons of religious dimensions, all these corporal, The Sacred Heart, and thorns around the body in silhouette as a version of San Sebastian. Finally, the third block is of smaller proportions in which leaves thrown to the wind and plant species in the process of gestation are perceived. The whole composition presents fading colors and shaky contours that reaffirm in the discourse of the work the idea of ​​transience.

Raúl Recio draws two characters around a pool with a shark, one of them in the foreground is identified by his hat and the visible part of the body dozing next to different objects. At the other end, a woman naked and asleep with a machine gun in one of her hands. The drawing is contextualized in a cardboard that only discovers two stripes, the upper one indicated by five thick and imprecise lines. A frame of greenish tones of a ramshackle window with graffiti and numerical figure complete the work.

With an imprecise and intentional box, Maritza Álvarez delimits the space in the work, whose composition is defined by four elements: a black tree in the foreground, in whose trunk a photographic fragment of a male nude is incorporated. In the background a blue semicircle, scribbled, and in the third plane the image of a house that centrally adheres a photo of a girl observer. The fourth element is defined by fragments of red or collage prints. At the foot of the work a legend written in italics where the title of the work is mentioned.

Polibio Díaz is an artist from Barahona who uses the photographic medium to recreate the social and human reality of the Dominican Republic, a portrait he often uses with intelligence and irony. Polibio Díaz is recognized because through his photographic work he examines these conditions of life of Dominicans. The Dominican coastal populations fully experience the condition of living on an island in the Caribbean and this situation determines many aspects of the life of its inhabitants. Sand nude, large-format photography, focuses on asymmetric composition, a young muscular black man almost completely undressed and bent, in a position to put on or take off a short dark blue trousers. The composition cuts the body of the subject at head and back level also showing a bed of grayish sand with scattered garbage. Through this character's approach in this context, Díaz intends to draw attention to issues related to ecological deterioration and the precarious existential conditions in today's society.

Another common reflection theme is proposed: Myths and realities of the Contemporary Caribbean. The selection of works for the Selection Jury is resumed.

The Selection Jury was made up of Gerard Alexis, Ricardo Ramón Jarne and Sarah Hermann, while the Award Jury was made up of Gerardo Mosquera, Marianne de Tolentino and Alma Ruiz.

For this installation, Pascal Meccariello locates seven tables of different sizes on a white wooden circle. Above each one of them, there is a basin with different digital photos of arms and hands, in yellow color, with pulses of thorns. Plexiglas fragmented in a semi-circular way, they act as half caps, in which figurines representing different characters are found, which evoke various social norms, linked to the Catholic tradition.

For the second consecutive year, Miguelina Rivera is awarded within the category of Installation, this year thanks to her work Power spines

Cristian Tiburcio is awarded for this sculpture, which denotes a large metal chair, unpainted, in gigantic size, with a back in the form of a male torso with a waistcoat, tie and head with a beard, at the same time, surrounded by several faces. On the back, another face appears.

Carlos Núñez is the author of this photodigited montage, in which he offers a landscape view with palm trees and a road where part of a red car is located, and from which a passenger with glasses seems to see a woman standing next to girl squatting and cans of mangoes.

Miguel Cruz in this photograph shows a room almost in darkness, where a black man, with a white shirt, focused almost full body, operates a drum (stick or atabal) tied to the waist. The details of the almost sculptural face and the expression of the eyes stand out.

Jorge Pineda draws in 12 drawings, almost all with main theme to different dogs, focused variedly with elements, figures and absurd situations, to, altogether conform this serial or polyptych.

Quisqueya Hernández captures in photography a mass in different shades of blue, floating, casting shadow in a space that reproduces the same color, in addition to white. There are different textures and roughnesses that refer to the perishable consistency of the ice cream.

Alexander Morel captures in this photograph, the view of continuous rooms of a house, with a backrest of a chair in the foreground and a door that allows to find two men sitting in metal rocking chairs, next to a window. In the background, a wall with clock and door, with little visibility of a third space.

The Eduardo León Jimenes Art Contest arrives at its 40th anniversary, and is held for the first time at the Centro León, founded in October of the 2003 year, which becomes the management center and the venue of the event. Video is accepted as a new category.

The Selection Jury was formed by Soucy de Pellerano, Carlos Acero Ruiz and Germán Rubiano Caballero, while the Award Jury was made up of Thimo Pimentel, Shifra M. Goldman and Félix Ángel.

Robert Álvarez makes this digital print on photographic paper, which won him a prize in the XX edition of the contest.

Gerard Ellis, who in addition to being a publicist and illustrator, is the author of this mixed-media painting on canvas, which earned him an award for the XX Eduardo Jimenes Art Contest.

In his recent paintings to the contest, Gerard Ellis symbolizes through the canine figure the miseries that touch the contemporary human condition.

Maritza Álvarez captures in this photograph the lower part of a woman's body, sitting on a surface covered with a red coverlet and her body partially covered by a white cloth, stained with some red substance, and a black veil. Next to it there is a glass and bottle lying on the surface.

Pedro Fidencio Joseph is awarded for this photographic work similar to color.

Fausto Ortiz is awarded in this contest for this set of two images entitled City of shadows.

Rafael de Lemos is worthy of recognition for his work I know what you are thinking. The author is a graphic designer, interior designer, has studied visual communication and was a professor for more than a decade at the Faculty of Architecture and Arts at the National University Pedro Henríquez Ureña in Santo Domingo.

Pascal Meccariello is the first artist to be awarded in the Eduardo León Jimenes Art Contest for a category production of type Video thanks to Tears for tears, its video art with 4 minutes and 20 seconds duration.

The Contest encourages the participation of Dominican artists from the diaspora, with the presentation of their bases and the opening of the exhibition Eduardo León Jimenes Art Contest: Selection of awarded works, in MR Cohen Library of the City University of New York (CUNY), United States. For the first time, foreign artists can participate in the Contest, one of whose parents is Dominican. A comprehensive socio-cultural education and animation program is implemented for the contest. Another mode of awarding is established: a grand prize and seven prizes, one for each category.

The Selection Jury was made up of Myrna Guerrero, Ruth Auerbach and Silvia Karman Cubiñá, while the Award Jury was made up of Rocío Aranda-Alvarado, María Elena Ditrén and Carlos Palacios.

Joan Alberdy Padilla is the author of this video art with a duration of 4 minutes and 13 seconds that earned him the prize of the corresponding category.

Jorge Pineda is the author of this installation conformed by the decapitated life-size figure of a teenager carved in wood of natural size and polychromatic termination. The mannequin wears colorful clothes in the style of the sixties, sports shoes, denim pants and orange shirt. His body appears facing the wall with his hands in his trouser pockets, the position of the neck suggests that the head was tilted towards the wall marked by a drawing of circular shape resulting from scribbles with charcoal that simulates the hairstyle that consists of afro oversized.

In adolescence it is where most of the questions of the life of the human being are generated and where their answers are constructed. Modern society places young people in a more or less exclusive position before these questions, canceling their reflective capacities to a certain extent. In the words of the artist, the Afro installation speaks of the apparent conformity of the adolescent who at any moment can explode in a thousand ways, beyond the innocent posture of letting his hair grow as an unequivocal manifestation of rebellion.

In the room No title, among other things, Raquel Paiewonsky expresses an in-depth analysis of miscegenation and racism and the fact that in Caribbean culture this condition leaves marks without distinction of gender or age.

This polyptych formed by six images arranged in two rows and three columns, presents portraits of six members of a family nucleus of Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, captured from head to waist in poses and poses on a cream background. All the characters are mulatto skin and appear covered by a lining made of translucent and elastic fabric that adheres to their bodies. The tone of this one coincides with the complexion of the portrayed ones and on the same they have placed medical bandages of circular form. The characters are described below, in reading from left to right, from the upper spaces to the lower spaces.

In the upper left corner appears a male figure of middle age and thick build, in a two-thirds position with an expressionless attitude and a look towards the spectator. In the upper center there is a man with his back without an apparent gestural attitude. In the upper right corner, a girl in profile with her eyes closed. In the lower right corner shows a young man caught foreshortening with his eyes towards the viewer, beside him a young woman with relaxed arms and body slightly leaning to the left, while her gaze is directed to the ground. Finally, in the lower right corner there is a man with his shoulders slumped and looking straight ahead. Raquel Paiewonsky is a contemporary artist who shows great interest in the body. His works induce the viewer to reflect on their own human condition.

Fernando Varela, in this monochromatic painting, marks typographical graphics in brown tones on a predominantly whitish surface. The typographical elements correspond to the letters of the alphabet and have been stamped on the entire surface of the work, including the lateral spaces.

The pictorial work of Fernando Varela makes reference to the written word as a reflexive and provocative element. Order and chaos coexist rationally as part of a rigorous criterion of organization in their creative spaces. One of the constants of Varela's work consists in the evident use of the contrast between the positive and the negative, between the light and the dark that is felt even in non-figurative compositions.

Inés Tolentino is the author of this drawing, the work presents a variety of graphic illustrations of a symbolic nature, some made directly and others applied as a collage on the surface, among which stand out calligraphy exercises, dips or boats that they follow a trajectory marked by ellipsis, masculine and feminine portraits, armaments and small war scenes, bar codes, beads with sticks, stairs, hearts, caricatures, fragments of sentences and phrases, among others.

Inés Tolentino is an artist who explores the subject of memory, not only of events but also integrates the emotional element. The artist says: "In the deepest part of me I have a file of images that illustrate my mind and accompany my thoughts. Day by day, and for years, they have been creating an endless inventory of the world around me. My feelings have collected these images by all means and everywhere, they have mixed my life and my conscience."This drawing received an award when participating in the XXI Eduardo León Jimenes Art Contest held at the 2006.

Marco Giuseppe Rigio describes this work as a carpet that travels from the ground (horizontal) to form a spiral suspended in the air. Only the upper part of the spiral path is supported from the ceiling with nylon thread at some points. The elements that are loose are arranged randomly at the beginning of the journey towards it. In a thematic context, the piece presents a series of fragile boats or yolas that are directed towards a focal point represented in a swirling pattern. On the way, some have succumbed in the attempt. The representations of ships were made from sticks or pods of the poppy tree also known as Gabonese tulips (Spathodea campanulata Beauv.) Set with bamboo sticks. The issue of migration has been approached in multiple ways and from different perspectives by both young artists and those with more experience. Clearly, Rigio makes reference to the migratory issue and relates it to the fact that culturally this concept has significantly influenced the conformation of the Caribbean identity.

The Selection Jury suggests guiding the contest towards a curatorial model.

The Selection Jury was made up of Michele Dalmace, E. Carmen Ramos and José Roca, while the Award Jury was made up of Luis Camnitzer, Paula Gómez and Gabriel Pérez Barreiro.

Raquel Paiewonsky presents this set of 5 photographs that make her the winner of the Grand Prix, obtaining it in two consecutive contests.

Wali Vidal joins three by three panels of different formats to emphasize situations related to the nightlife of the city of Santo Domingo. In all the pieces of the set, specific elements of the urban plot are represented represented by simple forms of figurative intention and predominance of blue and green tones. In the highest position, there is the painting of smaller dimensions, as well as the one that possesses the elements of greater proportions of the whole. This first body, highlights by concentric lines the light and flashing of a police patrol. The other components of the triptych present two panoramic views of the city seen from an elevated position. The central block describes a city scenario that is defined by buildings, electric cables, poles for street lighting and vehicles that move easily in the vicinity of a corner. Towards the extreme right the third work appears with a differentiated picture of the rest due to vehicular congestion and the absence of agents of order.

Inés Tolentino presents this mixed media drawing, where she alludes to gender violence based on symbolic imagery. Male faces falter a cooked firearm. The feminine presence is approached from the resource of the fragility of the embroidery, the canutillos and the pink flowers that resemble a wallpaper, Damn love It refers directly to the growing number of violent deaths of women in the hands of their lovers or husbands that has recently registered in the Dominican Republic.

Inés Tolentino was born in Santo Domingo. He began his studies at the National School of Fine Arts of Santo Domingo and continued at the Art School of the APEC University, in the same city. Later he traveled to Paris, where he studied at the National School of Fine Arts and the University of the Sorbonne. He currently lives and works in France. Tolentino's work reflects on the social problems of gender, as well as on autobiographical issues, ranging from childhood memories to issues related to the histotic events that had an impact on his life.

Indhira Rojas presents this series of photographs that corresponds to the recognition won in the XXII Eduardo León Jimenes Art Contest

Raúl Morilla designed this installation to be presented in the inside corner of a room in a space that measures nine cubic meters of equal dimensions in all its edges and is made up of elements that recreate a dining room. The served table suggests the possibility of tasting the soup of the day through a projection of images in real time. On the surface of the plates, a grotesque menu of human components is projected, spicing up this cannibal feast. A short distance from the dining room and placed on the floor, a pair of boxing gloves is seen illuminated by a nearby light that attracts the eye and generates associations with the dark and sickly side of a society that is torn between selfishness and individual desires. And finally, one of the side walls covered by a grid of mirrors that reflects the events that occurred in its vicinity. Tasting condemned essences aims to make visible the area where personal interests and ambitions are settled, for this purpose the artist uses a neat scenography that reproduces the neutral atmosphere of a dining room.

Raúl Tamayo Morilla Rodríguez was born in La Vega, Dominican Republic, in 1972. He received his degree as an Architect from the Technological University of Santiago (UTESA), at the Santiago de los Caballeros campus, at 1993; of Professor of Drawing at the School of Fine Arts of La Vega, at 1998, and then did a Postgraduate Diploma in Construction at the Technological Institute of Santo Domingo, at 2001. In his artistic career he has been characterized by exploring different genres, techniques and materials. His sculptures, paintings and installations, are a sample of searches and constant experimentations. However, in its diversity of results, the medium only acts as a support, while the set of his work does not depart from a thread. His sensitivity for the social problem, to which he constantly goes, becomes a primary, active and independent source of the chosen resource to express himself.

After a long period of study, the XXIII Eduardo Leon Jimenes Art Contest includes fundamental changes in its format: the delivery, without distinction of genres, of 3 egalitarian prizes and several special recognitions; the participation through a dossier; the selection of up to ten artists; the appointment of a single jury for the selection and awarding; and the curatorial accompaniment of the Jury to the selected projects. The performance participates for the first time in the contest.

The jury was made up of Rosina Cazali, Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro and Jorge Pineda.

Natalia Ortega Gámez fuses the organic and the inert in The capsule, piece of refractory clay, sand, natural ferns, yogurt and butter, which as a living work keeps on walking constantly, overflowing beyond itself. With this piece, Ortega questions the role of ceramics in contemporary art and approaches it from monumentality, with nature as an ally in artistic expression.

Ortega's work revolves around materials such as clay, pottery or food, as well as the interactions between hedonists and nature.

Natalia Ortega Gámez is originally from Santo Domingo. Vivie and work in the same city. He began his artistic career with studies of Interior Design in Altos de Chavón School of Design, in La Romana. He then continued his studies at Parsons School of Design, in New York City, where he received his degree in Product Design, with a specialty in Furniture. In 2005 he moves to France, where he lived for one year.

Mónica Ferreras joins the watercolor, the ink, and the colored pencil on the paper to form this polyptych of 109 pieces, which made her worthy of 1 from the 3 egalitarian awards. The artist is awarded for the treatment of classic forms of painting and its updating through poetics related to migratory movements and the sensations of detachment, loss and geographical subtraction.

Johnny Bonnelly is awarded thanks to this installation of 6 pieces, and laureate for the originality of his proposal in the use of disposable materials, which he rephrases with irony and humor.

Based on the exhaustive analysis of the results obtained and the fulfillment of objectives of the previous contest, several changes were determined, the main one being that the number of selected artists could be up to twenty, not up to ten comom had been in the XXIII edition. As in the edition of the 2006, an educational program accompanied the realization of this event, during the month of January of 2012 were given eight workshops that sought to develop tools in the artists for the adaptation of a dossier, favoring 350 artists with said knowledgeable.

The jury was made up of María Elena Ditrén, Ivo Mesquita and María Inés Rodríguez

Raquel Paiewonsky is awarded in this edition due to the remarkable development in the creation of the performance, which resulted in a sober and austere work, involving and empowering the participants through their own body and the stories that were revealed through the costumes.

Carlos De León aligns 380 caliber bullets on a fiber board to turn his personal experience into an object full of meanings, starting from gender violence to question this phenomenon in contemporary society.

Hulda Guzmán was awarded for her work Party in the batey for his way of approaching painting evoking the tradition of the landscape, the portrait and references of the history of art, at the same time that he manages to inscribe it in the context of Dominican society.