Julio Emilio Neira Milian
Cuban, b. 1969
Born in 1969 in Sancti Spíritus, Cuba, Julio Emilio Neira Milian lives and works as a visual artist in Havana. He trained at the Escuela Vocacional de Arte "Olga Alonso" in Santa Clara and graduated from the Escuela Nacional de Arte in Havana in 1989. A member of UNEAC (Cuban National Association of Writers and Artists) and the Consejo Nacional de las Artes Plásticas (CNAP), he works as a freelance artist in Havana and as a guest lecturer at art schools and cultural institutes across Cuba. His practice spans painting, graphics, sculpture, installation, performance, and murals — with large-format works installed in the public spaces of his hometown. His work has been exhibited in Cuba, Mexico, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Argentina, and is held in the Colección del CNAP as well as private collections in the United States, Mexico, Germany, Martinique, Spain, Italy, and Argentina.
Artist statement
My work draws on the layered histories, mythologies, and lived realities of Cuba — the island's landscape, its rituals, its contradictions. Through painting, sculpture, and installation I explore memory, identity, and the persistence of the sacred within the everyday. Each work is an attempt to give form to what cannot easily be said.
