Transactions of the Eye by Harold Coego

At Modern Fuel, Transactions of the Eye is based upon artist Harold Coego’s two home countries: Cuba, where historical and cultural heroes surrounded him, and Canada, where new characters and new human interactions shape a different life. In Canada, Coego has been able to investigate his relationship with his home country and rediscover himself as a visual artist. His collage work, incorporating figures from Cuban currency, draws upon the historical characters which were received by the artist in a non-critical way when he was a child. Now, thirty years later, Coego gives these characters the chance to break through their own historical frame and wander free as commodities in an abstract world of ink and irony. The resulting images look like they’ve come out of an abstract cinematographic kaleidoscope that blurs the boundaries of nations with the power of imagination.