Rafael Cuevas' work takes a complex dive into the process of analog photography printmaking. From the capture itself using large format to the timelessness of the darkroom processing, every step is carefully experimented with to reveal vibrant textures - a textured subject, a textured film, a texture print - “scratching the cornea”.

Around The Corner - 2025

Around The Corner is a current work in progress playing with perspectives, creating an illusion of depth in a two-dimentional plane. The process starts from incorporating the multiple subtleties of large format tilting and focusing. The lingering illusion enhanced by Black and White film is sublimed through an extremely rich printing process, Amidol. This 19th Century developing technique works on the emulsion from bottom up to the surface of the paper, creating incredibly rich blacks. Alongside this crafted process is a playful homage to the local scene; graffiti artists use Bushwick’s walls as their canvas. A serendipitous collaboration between street artists, Cuevas included, is the pretext to the photographer’s main interest: how light manifests upon surfaces.

J Backwards - 2024

Selected as part of the group Show at Flux Factory ‘PROCESS’ curated by MaLo Sutra Fish, the call was requesting a complete hand approach to photography and a site specific piece - Governors Island. Rafael Cuevas chose to play with Castle Williams’s architecture. This diptych heightened tension by creating a false perspective by switching sides of the composition. Simultaneously, pivoting the camera to polar horizontal extremes yet from the same vertical axis, Cuevas designed an illusion of a square angle corner convincing the viewer of its existence despite this building being known for its roundness.

Requiem For My Mother - 2018

Requiem For My Mother is a color series reflecting upon iconography and faith. As a child, Cuevas’s mother would make him pray every single night before going to sleep. Images stuck, sounds, casted shadows.

A lifetime later, Cuevas revisited the depth of these intimate projected shadows and omnipresence through this vibrant color series. Insinuations are what is left of religious indoctrination.

The right hand side depicts concepts through one color and texture versus the other side illustrating its imposed characteristics. What most won’t see is that the left side of the picture is an overlay of the right side plus a second negative. 

Homage to Abstract Expressionism - 2018

Strong colors, converging lines and composition balace are the elements which I concentrated most. Somewhere on the back of my mind jkept screaming Rothko, Clyfford Still

1982

Patty Smith and the Ramones were both playing weeknights at the CBGB, working pay phones were hard to find, we heard music from cassettes played on Walkmans and there where we, two kids doing our thing. Finding out who we wore.

1982 is a chapter book. Each chapter was all recorded in one day shoot. All the work is impromptu.