The Kiss
The Kiss is an artwork inspired by my Afro-Peruvian roots and the union between love, identity, nature, and the universe. Two faces meet in a kiss as their forms seem to merge with a lush, organic landscape.
The contrast of the skin tones represents the meeting of different worlds, while the presence of the Afro-descendant face connects the piece to my own roots and the cultural wealth of Afro-Peruvian heritage that has always accompanied my artistic expression. The abstract shapes surrounding the couple contain small universes and cosmic spaces.
To me, they represent that which we cannot see when two people meet: emotions, memories, roots, and inner worlds. The green symbolizes life, nature, and transformation. The lines and shapes flowing across the faces gradually dissolve the boundaries between the bodies, turning the kiss into something much deeper than a romantic gesture.
Created in Berlin in 2005, this piece was born far from Peru, yet it preserves a vital connection to my origins. It is part of an artistic quest where I combine my Afro-Peruvian heritage with surrealist, symbolic, and contemporary elements.
The Kiss is the meeting of two bodies, two identities, and two universes that, for a fleeting moment, become one.
Title: The Kiss (El Beso)
Artist: Edgard Vente Yubi
Year: 2005
Place of Creation: Berlin, Germany
Style: Afro-Peruvian Art · Surrealism · Symbolic Art · Contemporary Art
Pianist and Hummingbird: Chords of Life
Pictures
Pianist and Hummingbird: Chords of Life was born in Bamberg, Germany, in 2003, as an encounter between music, nature, and my memories of Peru. The large hands tracing the piano represent creation and the universal language of music. The fingers seem to extend over the keys as a hummingbird approaches, as if it could hear the melody and become a part of it. The plant and the tiny droplet of water introduce life and nature into this musical universe.
The hummingbird holds a special meaning for me. Its presence is inspired by the Nazca Lines in my Peruvian homeland, where the ancestral figure of the hummingbird has remained etched upon the desert for centuries. In this painting, I wanted to transport that symbol of Nazca into a different space: to make it fly from the Peruvian desert all the way to the keys of a piano in Germany. Thus, the artwork establishes a bridge between Nazca, Peru, and Europe, as well as between two fundamental pillars of my artistic expression: painting and music. The hummingbird represents the flight of my roots and memories; the piano represents the musical path I continued to develop far from home.
The hands are the meeting point between both worlds: they are the tools that create, paint, play, and transform lived experiences into art. Ultimately, Pianist and Hummingbird speaks of something that always travels with us: our roots. We can move thousands of miles away from the place we were born, but certain symbols, sounds, and memories continue to accompany us, finding new ways to manifest in our creation.
Title: Pianist and Hummingbird: Chords of Life (Pianista y Colibrí: Acordes de Vida)
Artist: Edgard Vente Yubi
Year: 2003
Place of Creation: Bamberg, Germany
Style: Surrealism · Symbolic Art · Contemporary Art · Inspired by Nazca Culture
Cancer: Instruments in Transformation
Cancer: Instruments in Transformation is an artwork created in Berlin, Germany, in 2005. It is inspired by the zodiac sign of Cancer and brought into a personal universe where the human body, nature, music, and my Afro-Peruvian roots converge.
The female figure occupies the center of the composition, representing sensitivity, strength, and transformation. Her body seems to integrate with the various elements surrounding her. Above her appears the Moon—closely linked to Cancer—illuminating the scene as a symbol of intuition, emotions, and the inner world. The crab, the essential representation of Cancer, appears transformed and connected by a long organic cord that runs through the painting. This cord unites the body with the instruments and other natural forms, acting like a vein through which life, memory, and rhythm flow.
Nothing is entirely separate: woman, nature, and music belong to the same organism. Among the musical elements, the piano and the Peruvian cajón appear. The cajón holds an especially personal meaning for me. As an Afro-Peruvian artist, it is an instrument I have played, and it forms an integral part of my musical expression and my bond with Afro-Peruvian culture. Its presence in the painting is not merely decorative; it represents the rhythm, roots, memory, and identity that I carry with me.
The roots and plants traversing the composition evoke origins and permanence, while the sphere situated beneath the woman's hand introduces a mysterious dimension, almost like a world contained within another world.
In this artwork, instruments cease to be objects and become living forms. They elongate, connect, and transform alongside the body and nature. In this way, Cancer: Instruments in Transformation represents a journey between the ancestral and the imaginary—between my Afro-Peruvian roots and my artistic experience in Europe.
Title: Cancer: Instruments in Transformation (Cáncer: Instrumentos en Transformación)
Artist: Edgard Vente Yubi
Year: 2005
Place of Creation: Berlin, Germany
Style: Afro-Peruvian Art · Surrealism · Symbolic Art · Figurative Art
Birimbau
Birimbao was born in 2003 in Bamberg, Germany, out of a musical experience that deeply shaped my artistic journey. During those years, I used to share music with Brazilian friends. In the midst of our gatherings, my Peruvian cajón began a dialogue with an instrument that profoundly captured my attention: the berimbau.
The ancestral sound of the berimbau, tied to Afro-Brazilian tradition and capoeira, met the rhythm of the cajónthat I carried with me as part of my Afro-Peruvian roots. They were instruments from different cultures, yet I discovered they could speak the exact same language: rhythm.
In the painting, the large hand holding the berimbau represents the musician's strength and the direct connection between the body and the instrument. The skin tones, the wood, the string, and the geometric shapes in the background transform that musical moment into a composition where Africa, Peru, and Brazil seem to meet symbolically.
To me, this artwork represents something I have experienced many times through music: when two cultures meet, neither has to disappear. Each preserves its identity, and by playing together, a completely new expression can be born.
The berimbau that appears in this painting symbolizes precisely that encounter I experienced in Bamberg: the Afro-Brazilian sound conversing with my Afro-Peruvian cajón.
Title: Birimbao
Artist: Edgard Vente Yubi
Year: 2003
Place of Creation: Bamberg, Germany
Style: Afro-Peruvian Art · Surrealism · Symbolic Art · Afro-Latin American Fusion
The gaze I don't forget
The Gaze I Don't Forget was created in 2021 in Zurich, Switzerland, and was born from a deeply personal feeling: I painted it for my love, who at that time was far away from me. The distance caused her gaze to take on even greater strength in my memories. Her eyes, intense and deep, remained present in my mind, and I felt the need to bring them into the painting to keep them with me.
Painting this piece was my way of saying: even though you are far away, your gaze remains within me. The cat represents the intensity and mystery of her eyes. Its gaze blends symbolically with the woman's, creating a connection between both faces. It is a silent presence that observes and accompanies, like those memories that endure even across the distance. The hair gradually transforms into large waves.
To me, those waves represent the waters that appear time and again in my dreams. They intertwine and envelop the woman and the cat, forming a space where love, memories, and dreams merge into a single image. The blue tones convey depth, nostalgia, tranquility, and distance. The composition seems to float between dream and reality, as if that gaze had been suspended in time. The Gaze I Don't Forget is a declaration of love turned into paint. It is the memory of eyes that distance could not erase and that continued to accompany me in my thoughts and dreams.
Title:The Gaze I Don't Forget (La mirada que no olvido)
Artist: Edgard Vente Yubi
Year: 2021
Place of Creation: Zurich, Switzerland
Style: Symbolic Art · Surrealism · Figurative Art · Emotional Expression
The Sun of Playa Hermosa
In The Sun of Playa Hermosa, the sunset transforms into music. Two percussionists rendered in abstract forms play their instruments facing the sea, while a massive sun illuminates the horizon and casts its golden reflection across the waters of the Pacific. The artwork was created in 2006 in Berlin, Germany, but it is born from my memories of Playa Hermosa in Marcona, Peru—a place deeply connected to my childhood and youth. It was there that I used to swim, walk along the shore, and share moments with my friends.
Despite being thousands of miles away, painting this piece allowed me to emotionally return to that landscape of my youth. The two musicians represent my bond with percussion and my Afro-Peruvian roots. Their elongated, abstract bodies seem to be part of the rhythm itself: one plays a conga while the other sits atop a Peruvian cajón. I did not seek to depict human figures in a traditional way, but rather to transform their bodies into lines, movement, and sound.
The Peruvian cajón holds a special significance for me. As an Afro-Peruvian musician and percussionist, it has accompanied a great part of my artistic journey. In this painting, the cajón and the percussion symbolically carry the Afro-Peruvian rhythm to the shores of Marcona. The immense sun dominates the composition as a presence filled with energy and memory. Its yellow, orange, and red tones contrast with the deep blue of the ocean, while the dark rocks recall the signature landscape of the Marcona coast.
The Sun of Playa Hermosa is an encounter between two places and two time periods: Berlin, where the painting was born, and Marcona, where the memory was born. It is also an intersection of painting, music, and memory—a tribute to those sunsets of my youth that, even far from Peru, continued to live inside me.
Title: The Sun of Playa Hermosa (El Sol de Playa Hermosa)
Artist: Edgard Vente Yubi
Year: 2006
Place of Creation: Berlin, Germany
Inspiration: Playa Hermosa, Marcona, Peru
Style: Afro-Peruvian Art · Abstract Figurative Art · Symbolic Art · Landscape and Memory
The Violin of My Solitude
The violin of My Solitude (El violín de mi soledad) was born in 2011 in Bern, Switzerland, during a period in my life when nostalgia, loneliness, abandonment, and depression became profoundly present. At that moment, I found in painting a way to transform those feelings into images. The artwork is inspired by a female violinist from Erlangen, Germany.
Her figure occupies a central place in the composition. With closed eyes and the violin resting against her body, she seems to play not for an audience, but for herself. Her music becomes an inner voice—a melody capable of expressing what words cannot reach. The tear streaming down her face represents an intimate, silent pain.
An immense, crying eye also appears in the sky, symbolizing a gaze that observes from within, the memories that linger, and the emotions that eventually surface despite our attempts to contain them. The large suspended tear seems to head toward the sea, uniting human emotion with the vastness of the landscape. In the distance, a drifting sailboat tilts over the waters.
That boat represents my own emotional state at that time: feeling as though I were sailing without knowing exactly where to go, pushed by events, searching for direction and a place to find peace once again. The red and golden sunset envelops the entire scene. The sun descends over the horizon while its reflection cuts across the sea. It marks the end of a day, but also the possibility that light will return after the darkness. The violin, the eye, the tears, the sea, the sun, and the sailboat form a single symbolic language. The violin is the voice of solitude; the tear is the feeling that can no longer remain hidden; the boat is the soul that continues to sail even when it has temporarily lost its way.
The violin of My Solitude is a deeply personal piece—a memory turned into paint, where music and landscape meet to recount a chapter of my life marked by sadness, but also by the necessity of moving forward.
Title: The violin of My Solitude (Navegando en mi soledad / El violín de mi soledad)
Artist: Edgard Vente Yubi
Year: 2011
Place of Creation: Bern, Switzerland
Inspiration: A violinist from Erlangen, Germany
Style: Surrealism · Symbolic Art · Emotional Expressionism
The Wedding
The Wedding (La boda) was born from an unexpected and deeply moving moment. The artwork is inspired by a Hungarian artist and her partner who were celebrating their marriage in Budapest. I was invited to share that special day with them, and almost at the last minute, I felt the desire to give them something that went far beyond a gift: a painting that would forever preserve the memory of their union.
I had a piece that was still unfinished. While thinking about them and the new path they were starting together, that painting suddenly found its true meaning. Thus, The Wedding was born.
The couple appears walking hand-in-hand upon an immense piano that transforms into a pathway toward the horizon. The keys represent life together: each one can be an experience, a joy, a hardship, or a new dream. Together they form a melody, in the same way two people build their history step by step. She lifts a bouquet of red roses, a symbol of love, celebration, and the strength of their feelings. The white dress moves with freedom as they both advance barefoot, transmitting naturalness, trust, and the decision to walk together through whatever is yet to come.
The massive celestial body appearing through the clouds brings a dimension of dream and mystery to the scene. Before them opens a luminous horizon, symbolizing the unknown future of a couple just beginning a new chapter of their lives. This painting was created as a gift, but also as a wish: that when they look upon it over the years, they can return for an instant to their wedding day and remember that they once began walking together toward a future yet to be written.
The Wedding does not simply represent a marriage; it represents the beginning of a new melody, composed between two people who decide to travel the same path.
Title: The Wedding (La boda)
Artist: Edgard Vente Yubi
Year: 2026
Place of Creation: Budapest, Hungary
Style: Contemporary Art · Surrealism · Symbolic Art · Romanticism
Portrait of me at 16 - Dreams of the World
Portrait of me at 16 — Dreams of the World is an encounter between who I was and who I came to be. Painted in 2026, it represents my face at 16 years old—a stage in life when my gaze was full of restlessness, strength, and a desire to discover what lay beyond the place where I grew up. The eyes are the very center of the painting. It is the gaze of a young man who wanted to take on the world, to know other countries, other cultures, and other ways of living. At that time, traveling the world was still just a dream, but inside me, there was already a certainty that one day I would leave.
The youthful face, serene yet determined, contrasts with the intensity of those eyes. The abundant hair and the simplicity of the clothing preserve the essence of that era and of my roots. I did not want to merely depict my appearance at 16, but also the ambition, curiosity, and hope that I carried within.
Over the years, that boy managed to achieve many of those dreams. I came to know different places, cultures, and people, and art, music, and my Afro-Peruvian roots accompanied me along that path. But nothing came for free: behind every journey, there was emotion, hard work, sacrifices, difficult moments, and the constant decision to keep going. That is why this self-portrait does not speak solely of the past. Painting it in 2026 means looking back at that young man from the present and being able to tell him: "We made it. The world you dreamed of knowing was waiting for you."
The artwork represents the power of dreams when one dares to pursue them. That gaze from my 16 years still lives within me: it is the same curiosity that still drives me to create, travel, and discover.
Title: Portrait of me at16 — Dreams of the World (Retrato de mis 16 años — Sueños de mundo)
Artist: Edgard Vente Yubi
Year: 2026
Style: Portrait · Autobiographical Art · Afro-Peruvian Art · Symbolic Realism
Theme: Youth · Dreams · Travel · Sacrifice · Overcoming Obstacles · Identity
Trompa de Elefante, Rhythms of My Memory
Trompa de Elefante, Rhythms of My Memory (Trompa de Elefante, Ritmos de mi memoria) is born from an old photograph of my sister Idalih and, above all, from my childhood memories in Marcona, Peru. It is inspired by one of the natural formations that most sparked my imagination since I was a child: the Elephant's Trunk (La Trompa de Elefante) . From a very young age, I walked along these beaches with my family and friends. I remember walking among its rounded stones, hunting for shellfish around the trunk and base of that massive rock formation, and gathering small shells of different shapes and colours to make necklaces and bracelets.
The water in this area is very cold but extraordinarily crystalline—so clear that you can see fish and other marine life beneath the surface. Those large rocks of Marcona were fundamental in awakening my imagination. Even as a child, I found figures, animals, and fantastic shapes within them. Without knowing it yet, those landscapes began to educate my vision and became one of the very first sources of inspiration for my path as a visual artist.
In this painting, I do not seek to reproduce the beach exactly as it is, but rather how it remains within my memories and imagination. The artwork speaks a surrealist and figurative language, where the real landscape of Marcona transforms and encounters another essential part of my life and artistic identity: Afro-Peruvian culture. The dancers perform the alcatraz, an Afro-Peruvian dance full of joy, playfulness, energy, and movement. Their bodies seem to follow the exact same rhythm as the waves and the twilight, while the musicians fill the scene with percussion and tradition. Among the instruments is the Peruvian cajón, deeply linked to my own history. The cajón has been a constant companion in my artistic journey and one of the instruments that led me to travel the world, sharing Afro-Peruvian rhythm and culture far beyond the borders of Peru. Alongside the cajón, the quijada de burro (donkey jawbone) and the campana (cowbell) also appear—percussion instruments that enrich the scene and give it that specific Afro-Peruvian flavor, character, and identity that I wanted to convey.
These instruments are not merely present as musical objects; they represent a sonic memory, the rhythm of our celebrations, and a tradition that continues to live on through musicians and dancers. Colour plays a vital role throughout the composition. The landscape is enveloped in an intense sunset of reddish, orange, ochre, and golden tones. The warm twilight light stretches across the sky, the sea, the beach, and the grand rock formations. I intentionally sought to blend those sunset colours with the skin tones of the Afro-Peruvian figures. The reddish-orange light caresses their bodies, making the dancers, musicians, and landscape feel as though they belong to the very same atmosphere. Skin, earth, rocks, sea, and sky are all bound together by a single light.
While the Elephant's Trunk is a tourist landmark today, to me it represents much more. It is a piece of my childhood, of moments shared with my family and friends, of my first discoveries by the sea, and of those natural shapes that nourished my imagination and helped awaken my artistic calling.
Elephant's Trunk, Rhythms of My Memory unites two worlds that have always been a part of me: the landscape of Marcona and Afro-Peruvian culture. It is a memory transformed into paint, where the alcatraz, the cajón, the quijada, and the campana echo once more before the sea, while the Elephant's Trunk stands firm beneath the fiery red and orange of the sunset.
Title: Elephant's Trunk, Rhythms of My Memory (Trompa de Elefante, Ritmos de mi memoria)
Artist: Edgard Vente Yubi
Year: 2026
Place of Creation: Kloten, Switzerland
Style: Afro-Peruvian Art · Surrealism · Symbolic Art
