The Surreal Images of Erick and Elliot Jiménez

In this “El Monte,” the science of ethnography is traded for something less rigid, something more whimsical and unconstrained. Whereas Cabrera sought to present a faithful documentation of the occult, the Jiménezes build a dizzying world of multiple dualities, in which photographs appear to be paintings, Afro-Cuban and Greco-Roman mythologies mingle freely, and the aesthetics of Western art movements surround what the twins call “shadow figures”—models distilled into blacked-out, bright-eyed presences, redolent of Ayón’s visual universe.

“People are familiar with these European mythologies or famous art historical figures like Monet or Michelangelo,” Elliot Jiménez said. The series, he explained, is an attempt at “reinterpreting more iconic works in the context of Cuban culture and spirituality—the things we grew up with and that relate to us.” In one shot, Venus is reborn, dark and pregnant against a background of blurred blue. Sikán, a female figure from the lore of an all-male, Afro-Cuban secret society called the Abakuá, is portrayed holding the fish that sealed her fate. (The photo is dedicated to Ayón, who studied the religious order and eventually adopted Sikán as a kind of alter ego.) The Jiménezes’ version of the wilderness is a space in which dominant symbols and narratives undergo a process of transformation, even subjugation. Draped in lush fabrics or donning Elizabethan ruffs, the shadow figures command each frame they occupy.