Alejandro Gortazar

In 2014, Gortazar continues to create photographs using a 1930s Speed Graphic 5x4 and Century Graphic 6x9" , as well as SLR cameras.

In 2013, Gortazar received two LUKAS (Latin UK Awards) for "outstanding contribution" to the arts: Art Exhibition of the Year (for his photographic exhibition Cuba, Treasured Island) and Visual Artist of the Year.

In 2012, Gortazar set up a company, 13 The Group Ltd., opened 13 The Gallery in Newington Green, and became the first Cuban to own an art gallery in Europe. 13 The Gallery is a fairtrade, community and internationalist nonprofit art gallery focusing on Latin American and Caribbean artists.

He was interviewed on television in Cuba, and later abroad. His photographs began to be exhibited and acquired internationally and, in 2010, the series from his exhibition Horizons was received by the Vice-Minister of Culture and is kept in the national centre for photography, the Fototeca Nacional de Cuba. In 2013, Professor Jean Stubbs interviewed Gortazar for her forthcoming book on artists of the Cuban Diaspora.

In 2009 Gortazar moved to London; in 2010 he opened Studio Gortazar.in the Latin American and Caribbean Seven Sisters Indoor Market. Gortazar joined The Ward’s Corner Community Coalition in their efforts to stop the English Heritage building home to the Seven Sisters Market from being demolished.

Gortazar studied artistic techniques with painter Raúl Camilo de la Vega, and held his first exhibition Lighthouses, guardians of the waters in 1999. After studying speed techniques, he created a series of photographs, The Malecon of my Havana.

Alejandro Gonzalez Gortazar (born 18 January 1973) is a Cuban photographer, visual artist, journalist and entrepreneur working in London, United Kingdom since 2009. Gortazar’s photographic work has focused on nature, and wildlife and the environment. His photographs are sometimes mistaken for paintings.