• Oil on canvas, 45x65cm, 2000
  • Oil on canvas, 45x65cm, 2017
  • Oil on canvas, 45x65cm, 2017
  • Oil on canvas, 45x65cm, 2017
  • Oil on canvas, 45x65cm, 2017
  • Oil on canvas, 45x65cm, 2017
  • Oil on canvas, 45x65cm, 2017
Gaston Sariol Hernandez
Havana, 1943

Gaston is interested in painting since he was a child; but as many other children, he also dream to fly airplanes; a dream that he could make real when he started at the age of 16 in the Revolutionary Air forces. Three years later he began in the School of Military Aviation finishing as a helicopters' pilot. Later on he started in the Agricultural Aviation and after years he is promoted to pilot of the main Cuban commercial line: Cubana de Aviacion (from the Spanish Cuban Aviation). During his 35 years of professional career he accumulated 15 000 hours in routes toward Europe, the Caribbean, Africa, North America and Latin-America, visiting a great number of cities in different countries.
Suddenly, after some health problems, the Cuban Institute of Civil Aeronautics forced him to retire in spite of the fact that the aeronautical medical commission ruled that he could continue flying like co-pilot without possibility of being a captain again. This fact caused a deep sorrow when he couldn't continue to fly, still having the energies and the desires to make it. Also, he had the necessity to reorient his life toward another occupation.
Successive problems of health made even more difficult for him to have a professional development and it is under these conditions that he got back as a self-taught artist to his love for the painting. Gaston found in art a way to continue flying when he reflects in its paintings different passages of his experiences as a pilot and the incredible visions in the air he had, combining it with elements created by his imagination. It is particularly interesting the way in which he describes to the detail the interiors of the booths that once he commanded; as well as the perspectives that are shown in his paintings because he makes us participate of his spectrum as a pilot; and put us in front of the skies, landscapes and landing strips of all over the world.

Exhibitions
  • 2015. Alas de la Solidaridad. Exposition room of Civil Aeronautics. Havana, Cuba.
  • 2011. El Aguilucho Cubano. Sevilla Global Building. Sevilla, Spain.