About Frank

Frank Chinea Inguanzo (b. 1952) is a Cuban-born, Miami-based artist whose paintings embody the tension between memory and loss, darkness and resilience. Raised in Little Havana after immigrating to the U.S. as a child, Frank’s work is inseparable from his immigrant experience, his lifelong search for belonging, and his unflinching confrontation with the fragility of human life. Remarkably, Frank began painting at the age of 45, after a profound heartbreak. With no formal training, he transformed grief into a discipline of expression, teaching himself to listen to the canvas and translate sorrow into imagery. What began as catharsis evolved into an extraordinary body of work of more than 850 paintings, each piece a testimony of pain, resistance, and hope. “The artist’s path doesn’t just call to me, it pursues me.”

Artistic Approach

Frank works fluently across oil, acrylic, watercolor, and mixed media. His creative process is instinctive, often unfolding through what he calls “accidents”, unpredictable interactions between artist and canvas. For him, the canvas is never passive, but a collaborator: “The canvas is also an artist. It is an equal. The canvas plus everything around you inform and creates the work.” This dialogue creates works that are layered, ambiguous, and emotionally charged. Shadowy silhouettes, distorted figures, and dense color fields collapse time and place, pushing the viewer into a space where memory, grief, and revelation coexist.”

Style & Influence

Art critics have compared Frank’s paintings to German Expressionists such as Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Emil Nolde, and to Marc Chagall’s dreamlike worlds. His compositions recall early 20th-century modernism with their tilted perspectives, feverish energy, and haunting symbolism. In Life Upside Down (2017), figures drift between day and night, some walking toward crimson skies, others emerging through impossible doors. In Absent Farewell (53 x 53”), a priest-like figure represents the lost souls who linger in his imagination: “Most of the time, I paint people that are not in this world anymore, lost souls. It’s rare that you find a good ending. Even the end has an end. Time is our worst enemy, our master. "The important thing is to open your soul, not your eyes."

Themes & Vision

Frank’s paintings are testimonies of both personal and collective struggle. His work addresses displacement, racism, and social injustice, while also giving form to intimate experiences of heartbreak, loneliness, and mortality. “Every generation has its own Guernica. I stand before the canvas to speak for innocent lives lost in Gaza, for immigrants dismissed and silenced, for democracy unraveling before our eyes. America needs to be colour-blind, that would make it great. One does not wake up when one opens his eyes; one wakes up when he opens his soul.” For Frank, art is not only memory and mourning, but resistance and witness. His paintings hold space for grief yet insist on the possibility of renewal.

Philosophy

Frank’s philosophy is rooted in vulnerability and persistence. He sees the artist as both dreamer and historian, tasked with carrying truths others might overlook. “We artists play the lottery with our souls, vulnerable, exposed, and unsure of what the next moment will bring. We dream with our eyes open. In my case, I sleep very little, aware that I’m fighting humanity’s worst enemy: time. Along the way, we lose people we love. In their place, loneliness arrives, and so does our shadow, and it never leaves us.”

Legacy & Recognition

Frank’s oeuvre now exceeds 850 works, and he is actively engaged in documenting and preserving his legacy through intellectual property registration and estate planning. His paintings have been featured in both solo and group exhibitions locally and internationally, resonating across cultural and political contexts. His memories remain rooted in Miami, his soul in Cuba, and his heart always tethered to New York City. For Frank, each day is a lifetime, each canvas a reckoning ,  and every painting, an unfinished conversation. "Art is a dream lived with eyes wide open."