Manuel Mendive Hoyo is a Cuban artist born in 1944 in a family practicing Santería, and is one of the greatest exponents of contemporary "Afro-Cubanism", through the visual arts. He graduated from the prestigious San Alejandro Academy of Plastic Arts in Havana in 1962 with honors in sculpture and painting. His first one-man exhibition was shown at the Havana Arts Center in 1964. Since that date he has exhibited his work in the most prestigious art venues in the world. The Cuban showcase at the XLII International Biennale of Modern Art in Venice (1988) was completely dedicated to his work. His work can be found in Museums and Galleries in several countries including the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana; the Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris; as well as museums in Russia, Somalia, Congo, Norway, Denmark, Finland, and the United States, among others. He is recognized not only for his paintings and sculptures, but also for his performance pieces in which he paints naked dancers, thus creating theatrical environments and settings. Mendive's multimedia work represents an important stratum of Cuban life, and employs syncretism at a religious, philosophical, ethnographic and artistic level.