(Cuban-American, b. 1985) Born in Pinar del Río, Cuba, Reynier Llanes studied at the city’s Instructores de Arte school before completing his training in 2004 under renowned realist painter Juan Miguel Suárez. In 2005, he relocated to Havana, where immersion in the city’s vibrant cultural life and museums further shaped his artistic development through continued study and collaboration.
In 2007, Llanes emigrated to the United States, initially settling in Naples, Florida. His work quickly gained recognition, earning a "First Purchase Award" at the 2011 MOJA Arts Festival in Charleston and being named one of Oxford American’s “New Superstars of Southern Art” in 2012. Influenced by Southern culture, his work was featured in The Vibrant Vision Collection, a traveling exhibition presented at the Morris Museum in Augusta, Georgia, and the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, South Carolina.
Llanes relocated to Miami in 2015 to engage more fully with the international art market and remain close to his Cuban roots. His work draws on folklore and the Cuban landscape, using narrative, allegory, and reimagined settings to explore human experience. Llanes’s art is held in the permanent collections of numerous institutions, including the Gibbes Museum of Art, the Lowe Art Museum, the Denver Art Museum, the Butler Institute of American Art, and others across the United States.
