Eduardo "Choco" Roca

The New York Times, November 13, 2002

Graphic Arts Magic in Havana
By David Gonzalez

The future of Cuban graphic arts is found among thick stones and ancient presses down a dead-end street just off the Cathedral Plaza. Past the ever-present curbside trio singing old Cuban songs in the faux-festive atmosphere, the real party is inside the Experimental Graphics Studio, where printmakers, poets and musicians share ideas and inspiration.

For 40 years, the old Havana studio, with its gallery, has been home to the island's leading graphic artists, who have gone on to win honors at biennials in Europe, Japan, and Latin America….

"The studio made sure that the graphic arts in Cuba did not die," said Eduardo Roca Salazar, one of the island's most distinguished printmakers, who started at the studio in 1975 and is known as Choco. "It is one of the most impressive places in the world, not just Cuba, for all the magic that has gone on here."…

Choco's deep-hued and textured prints, with their evocative Afro-Cuban religious themes, can hang alongside Eduardo Abela's wry woodcuts that turn the harbor's famous lighthouse into a bottle-shaped ad for 'Absolut Kuba'. .. His current work is intense with color, with traditional elements done in a modern style that would be at home in Chelsea or SoHo.

Choco now has his own studio inside a former warehouse, where he makes prints and paintings to the sound of Miles Davis on the boombox. It is a big, comfortable space, removed from yet intimately connected to the old studio, which he still visits.

"The studio was the start", he said. "Without them, all this would have been impossible. How could I have done art without them? I had no machines or material."