The End of Winter

Oil on Canvas. Unframed 32"x32" / 80cm x 80cm

by Cuban artists Maikel Benitez. 

In this evocative portrait, Benítez captures the quiet, trembling moment between seasons—a threshold where cold begins to loosen its grip and tenderness hesitantly reawakens. The young woman, wrapped in a red shawl, gazes outward with a softness edged by endurance. Her expression is neither sorrow nor serenity, but the fragile space in between, as though she has weathered something long and heavy and now stands at the cusp of renewal. A single cherry blossom drifts through the air, a whisper of warmth returning, carrying with it the sense that not only winter, but also the weight of past sorrows, is beginning to fade into memory.

Overall, the painting emanates a quiet resilience and poetic vulnerability, offering not merely a portrait, but an intimate meditation on transition, hope, and the tender arrival of spring.