Gustavo Ojeda (1958-1989) was born in Havana, Cuba. After living in exile in Spain with his family from 1967 and then in Virginia, in the United States, Ojeda moved to New York to enroll at Parsons School of Design at the age of seventeen. William Clutz and Kestutis Zapkus were two of his teachers at Parsons.

After graduating with a BFA in 1979, Ojeda spent some time again in Spain with a fellowship from the CINTAS Foundation. It was during his time in Madrid that he started experimenting with nightscapes of cities, the paintings he became most known for. Upon returning to New York City, Ojeda exhibited his new works from Spain and garnered attention, especially in the Downtown scene.

Ojeda received a studio fellowship at PS.1 for two consecutive years, which culminated in a one-man show in the museum. In 1984, at the age of 25, Ojeda was included in an exhibition of contemporary art, "An International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture” at MoMA. He participated in group shows and solo shows mainly in New York, but also in Chicago, Los Angeles and Berlin, Germany. (An extended list of his exhibitions and a selection of his paintings can be found on the memorial website www.gustavoojeda.com.)

Ojeda was diagnosed with AIDS in 1986 and died from AIDS-related complications in New York in 1989. Although he was mainly known for his paintings, Ojeda drew hundreds of sketch portraits of New York City dwellers that were never exhibited. A selection of these sketches were published in the book, An Excess of Quiet: Selected Sketches by Gustavo Ojeda, 1979–1989, edited by his nephew Gabriel Ojeda-Sagué

References

"About" Gustavoojeda.com. Accessed August 15, 2024. https://www.gustavoojeda.com/about.

Gustavo Ojeda: Nightscapes, a Memorial Exhibition. Exhibition Catalog. Published by David Beitzel Gallery, New York, and the Michael Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles, 1990.

Ojeda-Sagué, Gabriel and Erich Kessel Jr., eds. An Excess of Quiet: Selected Sketches by Gustavo Ojeda, 1979-1989. Chicago: Soberscove Press (2020).