Sergio Marrero González
Notes from a shipwreck
9.5.–10.8.2025
The Cuban artist Sergio Marrero González’ practice revolves around a profound need to understand not only his own memories, but also the fundamental conditions of reality. This urge—common to artists and scientists alike—is not driven by a desire for control, but rather by theories of chaos and uncertainty. In these theories, reality is seen as a dynamic system, hypersensitive not only to major variations, but also to the most subtle vibrations. The work shown at Kunsthall 3,14 is part of his Butterfly Effect series.
The work’s organic forms sprout outward like a hanging plant, forming a dynamic yet jumbled system. The sizeable installation, titled Chronotope #122, can occupy the entire field of vision of the viewer, like dense vegetation in a thick forest.
Searching for analogies between art and science has always been part of González’ artistic practice. Like systems of science or religion, art is a set of structures, but with poetic charm. Art can function as a model reality – it is a place where we can isolate certain elements or particularities of immediate reality and make them function in a different way. In the realm of art, logic can be bent and things reach another dimension – where the sensory, the poetic, and the conceptual envelop into one space-time unit. In the Butterfly Effect Series, the immediate reality encounters the artist’s technical skills and memories. Through the unpredictable and chaotic processes, new landscapes are born.
González’ working process happens in a profound collaboration with the Cuban nature. In his works, the traces of human, in the memories but also in the handicraft, entangle with the nature forms. By spending time in the mountains, he has learned to notice different systems taking place around him: the growth patterns of plants, the way time manifests in the traces left by the wind and water on rocks, or the logic of insects when eating a tree trunk. The desire to draw his surroundings shapes his way of experiencing nature: the way he might observe a rock, a tree or a path is determined by the way he could be able to draw them.
In chaos theory, every action in reality—smiling at a stranger or a snowflake falling from a tree—can trigger a series of unpredictable events. Could a butterfly flapping its wings set off a tornado thousands of kilometers away? According to the butterfly effect theory, the tiny movements of the wings may seem like insignificant disruptions in the larger system the butterfly is part of, but over time, these changes can grow into major outcomes, such as a tornado. Chaotic structures are not entirely random—they are organized around elements called attractors, like magnets for motion.
In González’s art, his memories function as attractors. The work develops chaotically around a memory—most often a personal experience related to nature, drawn from his various journeys through the Cuban landscape. At the same time, Gonzales works without a final visual image in mind, but employs strategies that embrace randomness and spontaneity. In the Butterfly Effect series, he uses graphite mixed with water, which behaves similarly to watercolor. By pouring the liquid onto canvas, he generates organic and unexpected shapes—freely moving bodies of water that leave stains on the paper as they dry. From there, he follows the contours of the stains, building forms based on his memories in nature, like a rock or a branch seen on a trip to the Cuban mountains. The changes in light, temperature in the room and noises around the artist will all influence the drawing, and the artistic process itself might change the memory.
Since his early career, found objects have been part of González’ art – elements that retain the original energy of the memory, mixing into the artist’s subjective experience. At Kunsthall 3,14, a delicate conch shell stands on a podium. Detailed lines made by the artist, covering the seashell, follow the organic forms and details. The numbers that appear in the work are an act of quantifying drawing and reconstructing the past, but the temporal notes also end up being expressed as visual elements, understanding calligraphy as a form of drawing. The numbers are a record, as exact as possible, of the time in which the artwork was created – or more specifically, the periods of time during which memories of his contact with nature took place.
Sergio Marrero González (b. 1988) is a Cuban artist and professor currently teaching in the Digital Art Department at the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts in Havana. He graduated in Scenic Design from the Faculty of Theater Art at the Higher Institute of Art (ISA) in 2015, following earlier studies at the San Alejandro National Academy of Fine Arts. González has presented numerous solo exhibitions in Cuba and participated in group exhibitions in Cuba, Spain, and Mexico. His work explores the intersections of memory, nature, and science through a multidisciplinary practice.
Curated by Malin Barth