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Poetter Hall was purchased by the SCAD founders in March 1979. Classes began in September of that year.  
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The Arts

Alumnus shows new work at La Galerie Bleue

“Under the Rock” by Cumbas

“Under the Rock” is indicative of Edgar Sanchez Cumbas’ work, which is often concerned with human emotion and interaction.

By Hannah Pittard
Published: Friday, March 21, 2003

On first meeting, SCAD alumnus Edgar Sanchez Cumbas seems too confident, too young and too easygoing to be responsible for the paintings in his most recent series, “Internal Perceptions,” and to have spent his childhood as the reticent and withdrawn boy he claims he was. But even a five-minute chat with the artist is long enough to see a hint of the boy Cumbas must have been and long enough also to believe that the somber weightiness of the images of “Internal Perceptions” are indeed his.

On display at La Galerie Bleue, “Internal Perceptions” is concerned with location, landscape and place. Cumbas’ paintings seem simultaneously familiar and strange. Faces with powerful, lonely and haunting eyes look out forlornly from impossible blues and cloudy oranges. Cumbas’ play of light and dark, color and shadow seem the stuff of nightmares, which is fitting since dreaming is an integral part of the artist’s most recent collection. More than anything, though, his paintings speak to and of real human emotions.

“The paintings are a narrative,” said Cumbas. “They tell a story of a vessel. They’re about where we are.”

Born in Santurce, Puerto Rico, Cumbas lived in South Carolina, Delaware, New York and Florida as a child. When other children were playing, Cumbas was drawing. According to his biography, “Instead of interacting with other children his age, Edgar sat on the steps of his mother’s brownstone apartment and observed their social patterns. He began drawing what his life was lacking: social interaction.” It was not long before he discovered his instinctive style as a figurative artist.

Cumbas graduated from SCAD magna cum laude in 1995 with a B.F.A. in illustration and received recognition from faculty and fellow students when he was given the Outstanding Achievement Award. Since leaving SCAD, Cumbas has relocated (by way of a stint in Atlanta) to Tampa, where he lives with fiancee Sophia Nakis, a 1996 video/film alumna who recently started the Art Registry of Tampa. He has completed several series of paintings, including “Circus of Egos” (painted while still at SCAD), “Giants vs. Victims” (painted for his first 40-piece solo show) and “Insomnia.” Overall, he has completed more than 120 original paintings and has exhibited in numerous galleries in Florida, Georgia and New York.

For more information on Cumbas, visit his Web site, www.dogegg.com.

“Internal Perceptions” is on display at La Galerie Bleue, 3515 Montgomery St., through May 5.