Alejandro Piñeiro Bello

Lush and fantastical, Piñeiro Bello’s new paintings are odes to the magic and wonder of the night, and they reflect his deep and enduring interest in the beauty, chaos, and uncanniness of the natural world.

Born in Havana, Cuba in 1990, Piñeiro Bello, who is now based in Miami, Florida, often examines the sociocultural dimensions of the Caribbean and its diaspora in his practice. Using traditional materials such as oil on raw linen or burlap, he forges striking layers of color in his paintings, evoking the natural landscapes and folkloric traditions of the Caribbean. The artist’s abstract and semi-abstract compositions take on otherworldly qualities, revealing unexplored places in his own subconscious—he considers his artworks journeys through time.

At Pace in Hong Kong, Piñeiro Bello will present 10 new, never-before-exhibited nightscapes—"Night Paintings,” as he calls them—of various sizes, all produced in 2025. Though he has been creating nightscapes throughout his career, Solo Quiero Soñar (I Just Want to Dream) will be the first presentation dedicated solely to these compositions exploring the unreality—the surreal, lyrical, and mysterious dimensions—of nighttime.

To make this body of work, the artist withdrew from the turmoil and noise of the world into a contemplative, dreamy state of mind. Bringing his paintings into existence as part of a fluid, meditative process, he considers each work a world unto itself. Piñeiro Bello’s visions for these nightscapes, along with their titles, are often informed by poems and songs, echoes of which can be traced within his canvases. These works can also be understood in conversation with traditional Chinese landscape painting. Bright stars and glowing moons preside over these layered, shapeshifting landscapes rendered in gestural, calligraphic marks.

“In Solo Quiero Soñar (I Just Want to Dream), the Caribbean becomes an oneiric geography where time is suspended and dimensions intertwine,” Piñeiro Bello writes in a statement on the exhibition. “Each painting is a portal toward that Caribbean sub-reality where ancestors continue to inhabit the nocturnal waters, where stars guide millennial rituals, where the red moon presages cosmic transformations. The dream is not evasion but revelation—it is the state of consciousness where the deepest truths can manifest.”

Works in his show at Pace in Hong Kong will include La Estrella Que Nos Guíaba Tambien Desapareció, Señora, Señora (The Star That Guided Us Also Disappeared, Lady, Lady) (2025), in which a flickering star illuminates a ritualistic moment around a fire. Drawing this work’s title from an ancient Afro-Cuban song about a disappearing, elusive love, Piñeiro Bello paints the star’s hazy glow in a mystical green. Another painting in the exhibition, Vientos Contrarios (Contrary Winds) (2025), features overlapping and intersecting spirals that move energetically in opposite directions. Each composition in the presentation invites viewers to look closely to discover the details and secrets within their depths.

In addition to his presentation at Pace’s Hong Kong gallery, Piñeiro Bello will unveil a new commission at the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum in Madrid, as part of the Blanca and Borja Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection program, this fall.