Cándido Bidó Galería de Arte

In the heart of Gazcue, in a bright blue and orange renovated house, the Cándido Bidó Galería de Arte (Dr. Báez 5, tel. 809/685-5310, www.galeriacandidobido.com [1], 9 a.m.–5 p.m. Mon.–Fri. and Sat. 9 a.m.–12:30 p.m.) is a gallery of art filled with the works of Cándido Bidó, one of the Dominican Republic [2]’s most celebrated contemporary artists.

His works have been exhibited worldwide. But here, in this gallery in the middle of the Gazcue neighborhood, amidst the work of this native son from the Cibao region’s small town of Bonao, you can study the paintings, which are like the sensation of the Caribbean sun in the middle of the country at medio dia (noon).

Bidó’s depictions of a tropical land and the people in it have a curious shortage of the color green, but the brushstrokes come in a multitude of other bright hues—orange and blue being his hallmark colors—and often overlaying the images with flowers and dots. The overall feeling of the paintings is similar to how magical realism reads in a García Márquez novel. Bright colors send the tropical humidity right off the canvas, while mask-like faces give you a sense of the magic of the land.