The artist known as Wayacon was born Julian Espinosa Rebollido in 1931 in Guanaroca, in the province of Cienfuegos, Cuba. Interviewed by Gerald Mouial in 2003 he said, “I am of humble origins. At present, I am 72 years old, but officially I am 62. When I was born it was necessary to pay for the (birth) registration... Afterwards, in 1941, my birth was registered.”
Wayacon is a self-taught Cuban painter who seems remarkably unifluenced by the work of other artists or the predilections of critics. He explained his nickname: “Wayacon is a fish that swims in all kind of water, both dirty and clean. I was called the same thing because as a youngster I was rather unruly. I lived inside the Cemetery of Reina and inside an abandoned Spanish fortress. I lived inside the tombs; nobody disturbed me and I took my girlfriends there.”

Like his namesake, Wayacon paints on all kinds of materials - wood, canvas, scraps of cardboard - in mixed media, incorporating wax, buttons, pieces of wood, forks and spoons into the texture of his paintings. He also makes sculpture – mostly of wood and bones. “I began painting when I was a child, but at that time there were not many opportunities.… At that time I worked with bone a lot, I sculpted it. I had not attended art school. I lived here, I had a workshop, and I sold my paintings. I barely attended school. I studied until third grade, I have learned mostly from others.”

Today he lives primarily in the Villa Clara town of Remedios, but he exhibits his art with the group of self-taught artists in Cienfuegos: “I live a nomadic lifestyle. I sleep here in Remedios or in a house of a friend of mine, or in the house of José, or in the house of Aida Morales, or…”

His work has been exhibited in the United States as well as in Cuba. 
(Thanks to Gerald Mouial for the above quotes from Magic Art in Cuba).