Marta Maria Pérez Bravo was born in Havana, Cuba in 1959 and studied at the Instituto Superior de Arte and later at the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts, both in Havana. She graduated from San Alejandro in 1979.

Her photographs are deeply immersed in the Afro-Cuban religions of Santeria and Palo Monte, and the Yoruba traditions brought to Cuba by African slaves.

Pérez Bravo is considered by many critics to be the foremost Cuban photographer in the world, and she’s had nearly fifty solo exhibitions around the world, including museum an gallery solo shows in Cuba, Finland, Germany, Canada, Colombia, Mexico, Spain, Brazil, Italy, and Venezuela. In the Unites States, Pérez Bravo has had solo exhibitions in New York, Dallas and Los Angeles.

Her first international exhibitions came in 1988, when she exhibited at the Museo Carrillo Gil in Mexico City, the Contemporary Art Museum in Lima, Peru and the Museum of Modern Art in Caracas, Venezuela. A year later she was selected to represent Cuba III Havana Bienal, further bringing her work to the eyes of international curators and gallery owners. A year later she represented Cuba at the XXI Sao Paulo Biennial in Brazil and exhibited in the US at the Bronx Art Museum’s acclaimed “Art and Cuba Now” exhibition.

Pérez Bravo has also represented Cuba at the IV Havana Bienal, the V Istanbul Biennial in Turkey, the Kwangju Biennale in South Korea. Her work has been also included in many museum exhibitions, most notably at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Museo del Barrio, New York, Museum of Contemporary Art, Brisbane, Australia, Museum Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany, Muesarnok Museum, Budapest, Hungary, Alejandro Otero Museum of Visual Arts, Caracas, Venezuela, Winnipeg Art Gallery and the National Art Gallery in Ottawa, Canada, Menil Collection in Houston, Louisiana Museum for Moderne Kunst, Copenhagen, Denmark, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, Wichita Art Museum, Kansas, Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Mead Museum of Art, Amherst, Massachusetts, Miami Art Museum, Florida, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Her photographs are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas, the Museum of Art, Pori, Finland, The National Museum of Fine Arts, Havana, Cuba, the Ludwig Forum, Aachen, Germany, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, and the Museo Español e Iberoamericano de Arte Contemporáneo, Badajoz, Spain and the Norton Collection.

This exhibition was Marta Maria Perez Bravo’s debut in the Greater Washington area. Her original photographs are available through the Fraser Gallery of Washington, DC and Bethesda, Maryland.