Montage
Anna de Leon
October 12 -25, 2022
In this latest exhibition Anna de Leon showcases mixed media works on canvas, wood and steel sculptures, functional art and prints. By seamlessly blending the division between the realm of memory and the realm of experience, De Leon creates work through introspective processes which can be seen as a personal mindfulness ritual. Though stylistically modern in execution the soul of each artwork decidedly hearkens to the age of romanticism, in which an ideal of ‘Fulfilled Absence’ was seen as the pinnacle, where spontaneity, freedom from rules, the belief that imagination is superior to reason and a particular devotion to beauty, love and nature were the hallmarks of the artistic movement of the age.
Her paintings appear as dreamlike images in which fiction and reality meet, well-known tropes merge, meanings shift, past and present fuse. Time and memory always play a key role. By referencing romanticism and symbolism, she amplifies the interaction between art and audience by creating compositions or settings that generate tranquil poetic images that leave traces that linker in one’s mind and balances one on the precipice of recognition and alienation.
Her works can be classified as part of the new romantic movement because of the their intentionally raw and authentic personal nature of her body of work seemingly placed as an antithesis to the globalized ideal brought on by social media that is a ‘cookie cutter’, ‘filtered’ and ‘photoshopped’ facsimile of what is real. However, this reference is not necessarily intentional, as this kind of art is part of our collective memory. By applying abstraction, she absorbs the tradition of remembrance art into her daily practice. This personal revival of a past tradition becomes as important as an act of meditation and reflection both for the artist and for the viewer.
Her works don’t always reference recognizable form. Though she often applies a poetic and often metaphorical language thought her use of strings, birds’ eggs, feathers and her penchant for the whimsical, she creates intensely personal moments created by means of rules and omissions, acceptance and refusal, luring the viewer round and round in circles.
Her collected, altered and own works are thematically interrelated material for memory and projection. “The possible seems true and the truth exists, but it has many faces”, as Hanna Arendt cites from Franz Kafka. Hence the multi-faceted nature and amalgamation of styles, mediums and techniques that is the show Montage.
The exhibition will run from October 12 -25 at Art Lounge Manila – Molito in Alabang.The opening reception held on August 23.
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