Cover artist Nilton Cárdenas of Cranston refuses to stand still.
“I am constantly moving, and creating art,” he says in an interview at Sharks Peruvian Cuisine on Broad Street in Central Falls. And when he’s not putting a brush to canvas, or a pencil to a sketchbook page, he’s curating art exhibitions.
For instance, Cárdenas has gotten a dozen artists together for a collective exhibition titled BLUE, which will be held from October 15 to November 12 at Ritual Spaces on Westminster Street in PVD. “I proposed the artists to see, feel, and paint in blue,” he says, adding that the color makes him feel calm and relaxed.
According to the visual artist and muralist, blue is recognized as the most popular color worldwide. The color of the sky and the sea, it is associated with notions of depth, stability, and infinity. “I’m looking forward to how the artists interpret the blue in their own particular styles,” he emphasizes.
And the color blue is featured on Motif’s cover for the October issue, whose theme is Hispanic Heritage. The work, titled Guardians of My Legacy, is from Cárdenas’ Living in Memory series. “I always carry my homeland and the legacy of my ancestors in my paintings. When I created this work, I imagined those guardians of my legacy accompanying me and protecting me,” he explains. The blue is the sky of the Land of the Incas, and serves as the background for the guardians, who are portrayed in vibrant colors.
Cárdenas was born in Lima, Peru, and spent his childhood in Callao, the country’s busiest Pacific port. He received his academic training at the former José Sabogal Higher Institute of Art and Design in Lima. In 1993, he and his family emigrated to Miami, Florida. A few months later, they moved to PVD, where they found a place that would eventually become their home.
“The main person in my life was my father,” he recalls. “He always called me to check up on what I was doing. And he always believed in me.” And encouraged him to take up the paint brush.
The death of his father, Jorge Cárdenas, in 2020 left a profound mark on his life. A community leader and one of his greatest influences, his father taught him the value of serving others. Today, Cárdenas keeps that legacy alive through his art, his community work, and his efforts to create opportunities for other artists.
It wasn’t the first time he had a hole in his heart from loss.
“Peru is a country rich in culture and tradition,” he says. “When I left my country, I carried a part of my homeland with me, but I also deeply felt the distance from everything I knew and loved. In the US, I began to express that connection through my paintings, bringing the landscapes, traditions, and images of my homeland into my work. This allowed me to keep my connection with Peru alive.”
That inspired his Living in Memory series, some of whose colorful paintings are on display at Sharks, which overlooks the Blackstone River. His series Deeply, done in stark black-and-white, is prominent on the restaurant’s walls. “I wanted to express sadness and feelings of loss, and for me black-and-white was the perfect way to do it, because a person adds color to your life, and when they’re gone…,” he leaves the sentence hanging.
Done in abstract style, Deeply’s artworks feature portals and doorways, staircases and ladders, and windows and pathways. The artist worked in acrylic, charcoal and wash. All told, there are eighteen paintings on display on the walls of Sharks.
In addition, Cárdenas used monochromatic acrylic to paint directly onto one of the walls a mural of Peru’s Machu Picchu. A friend of his, clothed in traditional Peruvian garb and playing the pan flute called the zampoña, is in the foreground. His father is also there.
“I was suffering,” Cárdenas remembers of the time he created the Deeply paintings. He doesn’t envision himself returning to that black-and-write period of his artistic creativity. “The essence of art, the moment, is crucial for the artist,” he explains. “But then you go on to something else, do something different, because that’s how you grow.”
Cárdenas listens to rock music, like U2 and Coldplay, when he’s working on the background of a painting. He switches to zampoña instrumentals when he’s creating the rest of it, such as mysterious creatures and forms. “I always paint the image onto the background, so that it looks like it’s just come out of that background,” he explains.
His favorite author is the Nobel-winning Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, a towering figure in Latin American literature and culture, who was also a journalist, essayist, and politician. His novels include political thrillers, historical tales, and murder mysteries.
It’s fitting. Because, as Cárdenas puts it, “My mysteries are at the center of my artwork.”
The spirit of his father lives on in him. “My father taught me about giving back to the community. And one of the ways I’m doing that is by creating spaces for a generation of new artists,” says Cárdenas, who continues to work as an educator in the Providence public schools. He’s served on the boards of cultural organizations, including Sol Gallery, the Cranston Arts Commission, and the Diverse Advocacy Foundation for the Arts (DAFA).
Along with BLUE, Cárdenas will be curating Little Masterpiece. The annual collective art exhibition will be held from November 1 to 30 at the Cranston Central Library on Sockanosset Cross Road. The work of twenty-nine artists will be displayed.
The idea behind the exhibition is that a small work can hold a big story, and be a masterpiece in its own right, according to Cárdenas.
“Growing as an artist, being able to do your passion, connecting with a diversity of people, with all of us building bridges with our art, is most important to me,” Cárdenas says, concluding, “For me, it is still a blessing to be creating art.”
–John Picinich
Cárdenas’s artwork can be viewed on his website at niltoncardenas.com and on Instagram @artistnilton.