Poor Cuban artist makes good with scrap, humor

MORON, Cuba - Lack of money has not kept Remigio Hernandez from making striking art. Without formal training or access to supplies, the Cuban artist has still managed to turn his ramshackle home into a museum featuring sculptures made from scraps of aluminum, busts molded from mud and portraits daubed onto discarded television sets.

"Museum of Baby", in the sleepy town of Moron in central Cuba, is named after Hernandez's late wife Barbara, or "Baby". In one life-size sculpture, she gallops off on a white steed into paradise. In a painting, she is the Mona Lisa.

"I go looking for things thrown away in the rubbish, aluminum, cardboard, and I find ways to recycle them," says Hernandez, dubbed locally the "Van Gogh of Moron".