Rafael Villares (b.1989) is a Cuban-born contemporary artist who works across various media. Through researching the history of the Natural and Social Sciences, his practice centers around an exploration of landscape, with the aim of highlighting the ways in which art and science intersect to shape and transform our understandings and perceptions of Nature. Villares often collaborates with scientists, researchers, and others across various disciplines to develop projects that challenge established ways of seeing. Villares' works are characterized by the inversion of familiar aspects of the surrounding environment from micro to macro scales. Each of his pieces invite the viewer to reconsider their understandings of space and their relationship to their local and global environments.

Villares represented Cuba at the 59th Venice Biennale and has exhibited extensively both in Cuba and internationally. He has also been an artist in residence at the Vermont Studio Center in Vermont, USA, and Residency Unlimited in New York, USA. His works can be found in permanent collections such as the Minneapolis Art Institute (MIA) in the USA, the Chazen Museum of Art in Wisconsin, USA, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, USA.