Inglés

47

48

49

WA BI SABI ART WO RK SERIES 50

Unión (Detail) 2017 Installation Mineral oxidation on iron, trunk, chains and salt. The pieces Horizonte and Unión are part of the Wabi Sabi artwork series, which began in 2016 as part of the Arte Efímero project at the Centro Cultural Perelló (in the town of Baní, in the province of Peravia, D.R.) created by Lidia León using salt from the mines in her home country. In this series, the artist, taking inspiration from the famous Japanese word –which is virtually untranslatable thanks to the many hidden layers of meaning it contains (expressing, in any event, a rather different style of beauty!)– explores the transformation of materials through contact with natural chemical compounds such as sodium chloride. The Wabi Sabi philosophy originates from Mahayana Buddhism, which sees a possible path towards liberation from the material world in the noumenal transcendence of the objects people consider important through their natural deterioration over time. In these works, Lidia León’s poetic side re-emerges –in the past, she has composed song lyrics. Her search for melancholy beauty recalls the ancient tradi- tion of canticles,9 solemn religious compositions in praise of God and all of His creations. The pieces that make up the Wabi Sabi series can be considered genuine hymns to life, offered by the artist/poet to celebrate her return to the world after a silent inner journey. Time, measured by meter in poetry, is presented here in Unión (and in the works Tejiendo Recuerdos and Es Muss Sein), as a modular and rhythmic composition, as if their compo- sitional elements were the sounds of the repeated words of a mantra. But while a poet identifies with words, losing her own identity in them, Lidia León an artist –though initially 9 http://www.sanfrancescopatronoditalia.it/notizie/francescanesimo/cantico-delle-creature-31157#.XSMg8 “Exercising inner silence sharpens the senses and allows one to practice the Wabi Sabi philosophy: to discover the beauty in everyday life, accepting the world as imperfect, unfinished, and transient. My photography background helped train my sight to accept the natural decomposition and transformation processes.” Lidia León [LiLeón] 51

Horizonte (Horizon) 2017 Installation Mineral oxidation on iron, trunk, chains and salt. 22cm x 2 m x 2.60 m 52



Horizonte moved by poetic inspiration– eventually finds herself facing the material that will show her (Detail) the concrete and tangible image of her work. And that is precisely what happened to León 2017 as she worked at the Centro Perelló in 2016 to create the installation Jarinita de Sal (Lluvia Installation de Sal). The installation, which was meant to explore the oxidation of pieces of iron be- Mineral oxidation neath strings of salt crystals, then gave rise to Unión, on its base of numerous aluminum on iron, trunk, chains tiles. In turn, the rusted tiles left their reddish-brown imprint on the underlying wooden and salt. base that became Horizonte. With this red pigmentation on the wood, the fragmented im- age of Unión was magically transformed into Horizonte. To grasp the relationship between 54 the two works, we can imagine Unión as the tree of life in autumn, its branches covered with leaves colored orange, rusty red and burnt chestnut, and Horizonte as the universe, the edge of the landscape against which the tree stands silhouetted and toward which its leaves are blown, carried on by the wind. Unión presents itself as a sculptural, almost two-faced work, a sort of iron curtain interwo- ven with chain links, hanging from a rough wooden beam. In composing the work, the artist deliberately left a bit of space between the tiles to allow light to pass through, so their shad- ows would be projected on the floor and wall behind them. The transient fragility of life is brilliantly represented by that light, depicting the mystery of death in the shadows as it filters through the tiles. In the end, the work tells the story of the connections that inexorably link all elements (and individuals) in their cycles of being and becoming. As occurs in the natural processes of decomposition, some molecules transmigrate from Unión onto the body of Horizonte, binding themselves to its wooden surface. Horizonte becomes a sort of self-por- trait of Unión, echoing its features and warm-toned colors. But it was not intentional: both works resulted from the experiment during the installation Jarinita de sal. Lidia León recog- nized the two pieces in the “tactile values”10 of the process of oxidation on their materials, shown here in all its expressive power. The artist performs the ritual of the sublimation of Art by lifting a simple wooden base (atop which the experiment took place) onto the altar of beauty. Horizonte thus becomes an archetypal image of a universal landscape, its shadowy black craters in which one can get lost alternating with rugged and desolate bas-reliefs. In both these works, starting from the Wabi Sabi philosophy and seeking beauty in the transformation of materials, the artist found herself contemplating the most recent dis- coveries in quantum physics. In his 1975 book “The Tao of Physics,”11 Fritjof Capra offers a comparative analysis of the relativistic and quantistic theories of modern physics along 10 https://www.finestresullarte.info/539n_bernard-berenson-metodo.php 11 Il Tao della Fisica, Fritjof Capra, Adelphi 1982

Unión 2017 Installation Mineral oxidation on iron, trunk,chains and salt 22cm x 2 m x 2.60 m



Splash (Detail) 2016 Installation Acrylic on canvas and wood “Splash inspired by the ocean’s movement and the splash of waves on the reef, is a composition of six acrylic paintings which allow you to create endless layouts by changing the placement of such paintings to each person’s liking.” Lidia León [LiLeón] 57

58

Splash 2016 Installation Acrylic on canvas and wood Each frame measures 30 x 30 x 5 cm with concepts from Eastern philosophy including Mahayana Buddhism, and in particular Zen and Tao. The Austrian physicist illustrates how modern science has arrived at many of the same conclusions as those of meditation and extra-sensory experiences. Mathe- matics and quantum physics both go deep into the workings of the behavior of materials, subject to constant molecular transformations, but above all they re-emphasize a view of the world as composed of countless particles, molecules and atoms in continuous transmigration from one body or element to another. If we look past things’ outward ap- pearances, we can get much closer to perceiving their dynamic nature and fully grasping the value of time and of life in their transformations from birth to maturation, to decline and death. This is the conclusion Lidia León arrives at when she affirms that Splash was inspired by the movement of the ocean, its waves and the spray of water produced when the waves break on a rocky shore. The work is meant to evoke how limited we become when we fail to consider ourselves as parts of a macroscopic system in perpetual disorder. The six small paintings that make up Splash, with their long green brushstrokes recalling action-painting12, in their immediacy, can be displayed either horizontally or vertically and in any arbitrary order, to indicate that in an open system (like art!) there is a very high lev- el of entropy, and numerous states of disorder. Human beings are drops of water in the ocean, their lives like leaves blown from the branches of the cosmic tree. But this vision does nothing to diminish the dignity and importance of individual people –on the contrary, it only brings beauty to their eyes as they widen in awe before the grand spectacle of life. Every single leaf is unique and bears its own particular pattern of veins through which its vital sap flows. The sap flowing through the leaves of the piece Tejiendo Recuerdos is the artist’s mem- ory of the colors and smells of her childhood and adolescence. This site-specific work, strongly reminiscent of Japanese screens, is made up of two white panels, each con- structed from twelve rectangles of semi-transparent parchment paper delicately and 12 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_painting 59







Tejiendo Recuerdos (Weaving Memories) (Detail) 2019 Interactive installation Paper, cotton thread, tobacco leaf stains harmoniously spotted with golden and yellow-ochre markings. The artist has arranged the two panels in parallel, leaving an open space as an invitation to pass through. On both the external and internal walls of the passageway, the parchment bears the shadowy imprints of tobacco leaves that were placed on the paper, treated with a mix of water and solvents for several days, and then removed. The white color of the paper is a reference to the white linen shirts the artist’s grandfather asked the two oldest children to wear when he brought them with him to the fields of the tobacco plantations, as fragile as the paper itself –a perfect representation of the delicate nature of memory. This is Lidia León’s homage to her native Dominican Republic, a land boasting one of the most beau- tiful natural landscapes in the Caribbean: a work made of materials from that landscape, but with an almost Oriental feel. It is here we should remember that the Taino, the original indigenous inhabitants of the Caribbean islands, were animists, just like the ancient Japanese whose art and aesthetics inspired the Wabi Sabi philosophy itself. The recognition of a spirit and a life cycle in all things is a transversal vision, uniting the world from East to West. The panels of Tejiendo Recuerdos are held up by a white nylon thread, woven into the net covering the passageway and creating the tunnel’s ceiling, which the artist included to call to mind the artisanal women’s work –spinning and weaving– practiced by the res- idents of Le Zitelle. We see white fabric marked with dark brown and yellow-ochre spots return in Síndone ¿Quién ha Tocado mi Manto? exhibited for the first time at the Museo Sacro di La Vega as part of the “Hecho Aquí” show. This piece evokes the Holy Shroud wrapped around Christ’s body as he was placed into the tomb, a relic that was kept for many years in the Turin Cathedral. As an homage to the Christian cross, Lidia León has mounted the white fabric longitudinally, at the center of two horizontal wooden beams. The spots on the 63





PREVIOUS TWO-PAGE: material, caused by its contamination by oxidized minerals, are traces of the death of Síndone ¿Quién ha Christ. To “contaminate” means also to touch, or in Latin, tangere. It is no coincidence that Tocado mi Manto? Lidia cites the Gospel according to Matthew (9, 18-22) in the name of the work: (Síndone. Who Touched “While he spoke these things unto them, behold, there came a certain ruler, and wor- my Shroud?) shipped him, saying, my daughter is even now dead: but come and lay thy hand upon her, (Detail) and she shall live. 2018 And Jesus arose, and followed him, and so did his disciples. Installation And, behold, a woman, which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years, came Wood and mineral behind him, and touched the hem of his garment: oxidation on fabric For she said within herself, If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole. But Jesus turned him about, and when he saw her, he said, Daughter, be of good comfort; 66 thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour.” To contaminate also means to fuse different elements together into one –exactly what the artist did in creating this work. The holiness of life and death is a fundamental theme in the Wabi Sabi cycle, whose works are based in the mystery of transubstantiation. Everything has always been written in the book of life, which is open before our eyes: it is Man who has lost the capacity to observe nature and the things around him simply as they are. The mystery of death and resurrection repeats itself every day right in front of us and inside us. To believe, above all, we must love. It is love that leads us to appreciate the beauty in the world. When Lidia León quotes architect Tadao Ando, who states “Wabi Sabi is the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature, of accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay, and death. It’s simple, slow, and uncluttered –and it reveals the authenticity of the whole”13 – she is speaking about love, because it is only with this spiritual attitude that we can find beauty even in things that might seem unpleasant at first sight. The English writer and art critic John Ruskin felt the same kind of love for Venice when he praised even its ruins in his book “The Stones of Venice.”14 They were authentic and real to him, even more beautiful and noteworthy than the examples of restored and rebuilt architecture –to Ruskin, their decorative details implied the spiritual poverty of men blinded by falsehood who no longer knew how to observe the world. Ruskin was the first to theorize an artis- tic ideal of rough surfaces and worn-out materials full of the beauty of “the olden days,” 13 What is Wabisabi?, Tadao Ando. Wabisabihawaii.com 14 The Stones of Venice, John Ruskin, Rizzoli 1987

NEXT TWO-PAGE: Síndone ¿Quién ha Tocado mi Manto? (Síndone. Who Touched my Shroud?) 2018 Installation Wood and mineral oxidation on fabric 140 x 90 cm





Memoria (Memory) (Detail) 2017 Installation Wood and metal

defending the dignity of the glimpse caught of a monument’s past glory seen through the grass growing amongst its stones. The Dominican artist Lidia León appears to have the same sensitivity when she travels throughout her homeland in search of forgotten landscapes and architecture. In 2017, during one such trip, she was attracted by the ruins of an old, burned-out house, and stopped to collect some salvaged material. This became Memoria, a large window scorched by flame and held up by two support beams of burnt wood. This highly emotional work was first presented to the public that same year, at the Galería Nacional de Bellas Artes in Santo Domingo, as the guest piece of the photographic exhibition “Ventanas al Mundo” by Juan Cepeda, curated by Marianne de Tolentino. This common window frame, formed by two simple rectangular wooden shutters from which old rusty handles still dangle, exudes a sense of past existence. In its heroic sur- vival throughout the passage of time, it becomes the archetype of every window that is suddenly closed forever to the world. Lidia León presents it as a monument erected in the name of memory itself: a trophy raised between two standing columns, still pierced by the nails traumatically ripped out of their original structure. As an artistic statement, it could be seen as a modern-day heir to the arte povera move- ment, founded in Italy in the 1960s in opposition to traditional conceptual art, using or- dinary everyday objects and “poor” materials (including wood and iron) salvaged by the artists as archetypes of contemporary expressive language. The forma mentis of the architect also returns to reaffirm itself in Memoria. LiLeón presents the window with its shutters closed, creating two adjacent but noncommunicative environ- ments, keeping the viewer from violating the intimacy of the domestic environment of which only a memory remains. Windows are usually open in art, to let in the light, but in this case the shutters remain closed. After all, no light can penetrate the shadowed darkness of silence. LiLeón crystallizes the melancholy memory of the house in Memoria, much like Ruskin did in his Venetian notebooks full of sketches and daguerreotypes, memorizing the details of vanished places and buildings. In the poetics of the Dominican artist’s work, as in the Wabi Sabi philosophy in general, one frequently tastes a bittersweet note that makes life more beautiful from every angle and approach, from the lightest to the heaviest. 71



Memoria (Memory) 2017 Installation Wood and metal 1.20 x 1.20 x 3.57 m Quinta Dominica, lent by the artist 73





This juxtaposition of lightness and weight is overcome in Es Muss Sein, a rudimentary lad- der built by the artist from simple tree branches and dedicated to the theme of Resurrection. Es Muss Sein (a German expression meaning “it must be”) was conceived as a counter- part to Síndone, and the two works were exhibited together in 2018 at the Museo Sacro in La Vega, at the Instituto Superior de Estudios Educativos Pedro Poveda (ISESP) between 2018 and 2019, and in 2019 at the Casa Arte in Sosúa in Puerto Plata. The crown of a tree, the part formed by its branches, leaves, flowers and fruit, is a directly proportional mirror image of its system of roots that burrow into the earth. The inverted tree common in Hindu symbolism represents the cosmic cycle of life, constantly rising and falling. And so, the inverted tree can also be considered a depiction of the system of cyclical reciprocity. By placing a mirror beneath the ladder of Es Muss Sein to lend it greater depth, Lidia León seeks to underline the reciprocity between lightness (upward movement) and weight (downward movement.) For that reason, the artist has selected a passage from Milan Kundera’s novel “The Unbear- able Lightness of Being” as a commentary on the installation, in which Kundera (himself quoting Beethoven) resolves the dichotomy between life’s weight and lightness in the inevitability of fate. “We all reject out of hand the idea that the love of our life may be something light or weightless; we presume our love is what must be, that without it our life would no longer be the same. We feel that Beethoven himself, gloomy and awe-inspiring, is playing the “es muss sein!” to our own great love. But is heaviness truly deplorable and lightness splendid? The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in the love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man’s body. The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life’s most intense fulfilment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of a burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into the heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?” Even destiny eventually resolves itself over time. The interactive installations of Wabi Sabi are dedicated to reflection on the concept of time itself: Pasar delTiempo and Reloj de Arena. 76

Es Muss Sein In the language of art, an installation cannot exclude its viewer. Its intent must be to evoke (It must be) a perception or critical relationship with the work. (Detail) For this installation, LiLeón has adapted everyday objects like leaves, plastic bottles, mir- 2018 rors, and natural materials including sand and wood. Installation For Pasar delTiempo, exhibited between September 2018 and January 2019 at the ISESP Acacia-wood in Santo Domingo, the artist installed a large silver circle 365 cm in diameter on the floor of sticks the exposition space, recalling a large clock face. Around the perimeter of the circle, using gold-colored plastic, she added twelve smaller circles representing the hours of the day. At the center of the circle was a reflective, rectangular element, raised up on two feet, as 77

Es Muss Sein (It must be) 2018 Installation Acacia-wood sticks 350 x 90 cm 78

79

if it were the hands of the large clock. As part of the workshop Arte y Naturaleza, the artist invited students from various educational centers of the city to collect flowers, leaves and fruit from their school garden and place them on both the face and hands of her clock. During the exhibition period, the students had the opportunity to follow the transformation of these natural elements through all their stages of decay. The continuous transmutation of nature that is constantly happening before our eyes makes clear the contraction of the past and the future into the present. Anything that is an object of perception is the present, since anything not present cannot be perceived. Consciously living in the present helps us to develop a greater awareness of the poly- morphism inherent in nature through which life is revealed to us. The hands of Lidia León’s clock are frozen in the present; the moment of perception, which becomes an experience as unique and unrepeatable as the infinite stages of evolution of every living and non-living being. Understanding this not only hones one’s own vision of the world, but also means walking a creative path. The creative mind feeds off from new colors and shapes, and art itself is nothing if not the expression of the variety and richness of the eternal present. The photographs taken of the young students León worked with during both installations show clearly that the age of creativity is childhood. Only a child can entertain himself for very long on a stretch of sand, inventing one new game after another. This is why art never grows old, because artists still know how to look at the world through the eyes of the child who still lives within them. The installation Reloj de Arena, realized in February of this year at the Casa Arte Sosúa in Puerto Plata, is made up of a few symbolic elements: beach sand in a rectangular wooden crate, a mirror, and six humble empty plastic bottles, upside down. This work, with its many symbolic references, recalls the Italian poet Giovanni Pascoli’s poetics of the child.15 For Pascoli, this was an individual’s capacity to be amazed and delighted by small things. The capacity that inspired the Impressionists to break with tradition in painting, instead depicting reality exactly as they perceived it –with results that were more vivid than ever before, captured directly in the present moment. LiLeón, in all her rediscovered integrity as both woman and artist, liberating herself from all prej- udice and calling on the marvelous spontaneity that defines her, invites her audience to sit down on the ground and play in the sand. The game is suggested by the objects that, unfortunately, are found ever more frequently on the beaches of our era of plastics. The 80 15 http://www.viv-it.org/schede/poetica-del-fanciullino

Pasar del Tiempo empty bottles become hourglasses, through which sand slowly flows, signifying the (Passage of Time) meandering passage of time. 2018 The mirrored wall the wooden crate rests against, thanks to its reflective effect, includes Interactive installation the spectator in the piece and appears to double both the area covered by sand and the Mirror-like adhesive number of bottles. Explaining the installation, Lidia León quotes the Christian philosopher vinyl, elements William Lane Craig: “There is a real and objective sense of time in the world of things as of nature they arrive and cease to exist.” According to the philosopher’s metaphysical naturalism, the theory of evolution is compatible with religion. In León’s installation, the past and the present are continuously alternating with each other, drawing the trajectories of the count- less grains of sand as they fall downward through the bottles. The speed with which they fall defines the intervals at which the two times follow one other. But an observer can only see the objective reality of this alternation, since there is no other way to experience it except in the immanent present. The theosophist Annie Besant, in her book “Man’s Life in This and Other Worlds,” stated: “It is the first three words I want: the ‘Immanence of God. Now that sounds somewhat dry and somewhat cold, perhaps it is a rather unattractive word; May I translate it for you to show you what it really means? God is everywhere and 81

Reloj de Arena in everything; But that is not enough. It means that when you walk down to the beach (Hourglass) and see rolling in those great billows of the Ocean, that as you see them and watch them 2019 thundering on the shore, you see in them the embodied power of God, you see in them Interactive installation His might enshrined in the ocean waves. It means that if you go into some splendid forest Sand, plastic bottles, and feel the stillness and the quiet and the darkness of the forest at noon-time, Ah! Then mirror, elements you feel that divine peace, you feel that stillness which is God.”16 of nature God is the transcendence which is manifest in all things. And so, as Lidia León shows us in her installations, it is the present that is the time of Revelation. 16 Annie Besant, Man’s Life in This and Other Worlds, Transl. 2005 82

83



ART WORK OF lidia león CHAPTER II

T HE D R AWIN GS Entre Miradas… Yo “Drawing is the (Among Gazes… Me) honesty of art. (Fragment) There is no possi- 2013 bility of cheating. Pencil, ink, It is either good acrylic, watercolor or bad.”17 on paper Drawing is the most spontaneous manifestation of artistic talent. It immedi- 86 ately reveals the artist’s capacity for composition, and is the foundation of many artistic languages. Long unjustly considered a minor art due to the ease of its technical process, drawing has recently been re-evaluated by art critics precisely because, as Salvador Dalí affirmed, the dexterity of the hands cannot escape the ease of the means of execution. The exhibit known as the “Draw Art Fair18 was held at Lon- don’s Saatchi Gallery in May 2019. It served to demonstrate how, on the heels of the ever-increasing number of exhibits dedicated to drawing, more attention is being paid to the drawings of contemporary artists (including on the part of collectors.) Drawing as a genre is present in many diverse artistic languages including painting, sculpture and architecture: it contains the matrix of the artistic idea, its concept. There are two types of drawing: the quick sketch, a kind of unfinished piece used to jot real or imagined images down on paper, and the finished drawing, the complete development of an idea or design. 17 https://www.frasicelebri.it/frasi-di/salvador-dali/ 18 Draw, Art Fair London 17-19 May 2019, Saatchi Gallery

One particularly interesting section of the Fair was “Drawings Ambience”19, dedicated to 87 the drawings of famous contemporary architects who have studied or taught at the Archi- tectural Association School of Architecture in London (the AA), including Zaha Hadid and Rem Koolhaas. The works were collected by Alvin Boyarsky, the long-serving president of that prestigious academy. Many of these drawings –which today have achieved notable market value– are unrealized ideas and designs, which nevertheless clearly reveal the creative genius and technical skill of their creators. These little works of art have inspired the public to reflect on drawing’s importance to architecture, as the architect’s first prov- ing ground: on trial are not only one’s cognitive capacities for managing the relationship between volume and empty space, but also one’s artistic and creative ability. Lidia León, who earned her degree in architecture, knows quite well that a good architect can be rec- ognized from the quality of their drawings –and she demonstrates this fact herself when she draws her installations. And it is therefore no surprise that her professional art career began with the drawings Entre Miradas...Yo, Mira... ¿Quién Mira? and Libertad en Proceso, first presented to the public in 2013 at the Drawing Biennial of the Dominican Republic, organized by the Galería Nacional de Bellas Artes in Santo Domingo, where Entre Miradas...Yo received an honor- able mention from the jury. For Entre Miradas...Yo, LiLeón arranges 12 mixed-media drawings in ink, pastels, pen- cil, acrylics and watercolors on paper as if the space of the work were the surface of a jigsaw puzzle, depicting her face throughout varying moods. A small round mirror is added at the center of the piece. Commenting on this work, the artist states: “These 12 self-portraits were born out of my need to integrate my various emotions (happy, sad, brooding, depressed, flirtatious, angry, reflective...) To recognize myself in each of them, accept them without judge- ment, and thank them for being part of me. I put a mirror at the center to invite others to see themselves, and accept themselves integrating all these diverse expressions, with joy and gratitude.” It would be superfluous to reiterate here the introspective and 19 Drawing Ambience: Alvin Boyarsky and the Architectural Association, Igor Marjanovic and Jan Howard, Museo RISD, 2015

Entre Miradas… Yo (Among Gazes… Me) 2013 Arrangement: 12 self-portraits with mirror at the center Pencil, ink, crayon, acrylic, watercolor on paper 148 x 116 cm 88



psychoanalytic significance of the self-portrait in art, so I will limit myself to analyzing the revolutionary reach of this original composition in Lidia León’s artistic career, and its fundamental importance in her life. Aside from the excellent technique her drawings reveal, this work’s underlying design man- ifests in the harmonious composition of the round central mirror acting as a fulcrum for the 12 geometrical elements surrounding it, in each of which she has drawn her self-portrait. The artist has reconstructed her fragmented identity in an integrated whole. The elements that make up her self-portrait become like so many windows facing the viewer –hence the title: Entre Miradas...Yo. The career of a professional artist begins when she first exhibits her work to the public. That decisive moment also leaves a mark on the artist’s personal life: since art is by nature an introspective language, displaying one’s own work is a kind of “standing naked before 90

others.” For Lidia, with her innate creative talent, recognizing herself in the various shades of her emotional landscape enough to appreciate each of them and build a unique work of art from them was crucial to understanding the path to follow towards the integrity, as both woman and artist, she sought in her later years. Art is a closed circuit of gazes, going from subject to object, to the spectator and vice versa. The diptych of pen and ink drawings on paper entitled Mira... ¿Quién Mira? points toward voyeurism, which has left true masterpieces in its wake throughout art history. León takes a step beyond it in these two drawings, and borrows from surrealism: two common everyday objects, linked together by an ambivalent sexual symbolism: a key and the keyhole it penetrates. To further pique the viewer’s curiosity, the artist has not chosen a plain, everyday key but a much richer and more ornate one, decorated with a medallion that almost looks like a piece of embroidery, and placed it inside an oval-shaped almond 91

Mira… ¿Quién Mira? (Look...Who’s Looking?) 2013 Diptych Pencil, ink and acrylic on paper 166 x 114 cm 92

93

Mira… ¿Quién Mira? recalling the beautiful initials of illustrated manuscripts. In the complementary drawing, (Look...Who’s Looking?) the almond motif returns with the keyhole at its center. This time, however, the oval is me- (Fragment) ticulously decorated with a motif of small circles outlining it, which are then echoed by the 2013 pairs of eyes depicted in various expressive states across the whole surface of the paper. Pencil, ink and acrylic In art conceived according to a hedonistic philosophy, the theme of the contemplation on paper of beauty harkens back to Greek mythology, and in particular to Aphrodite. The powerful gift that this mythological goddess gave to both gods and the men she attracted with her 94 beautiful body was the act of intercourse, understood as a moment of sacred union be- tween man and woman. Many artworks depict Aphrodite, or Venus, in all her sinuous and voluptuous nudity –so those who beheld the goddess would benefit, in a certain sense, from her powerful gifts. One of the most vivid examples of voyeurism in the history of Venetian art is from the 16th century: Tintoretto’s Susanna and the Elders. In this painting, preserved in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the mischievous painter starts from the Bible verse in which the prophet Daniel describes Susanna’s virtues20, but up- ends the usual depictions of her purity: he shows her admiring her own naked body in the mirror while being spied on by the hidden faces of the elders, lending the whole scene a sense of autoeroticism. The poetic license granted to artists that allows them to comment on any topic without falling into negative thoughts or vulgarity is one of the prerogatives of art itself, whose ex- pressive languages are in absolute terms the least bound by convention. After having put the various parts of herself back together, Lidia León understood that she had arrived in the artistic realm where one can move freely, allowing oneself an extra smile here and there –or, sometimes, a good honest cry– but above all, where the gentle breeze of freedom blows. In the ink-on-paper drawing entitled Libertad en Proceso, an abstract white shape recalling a feather or a leaf is suspended in mid-air on the page. Commenting on this drawing, the artist cites Indian philosopher Vimala Thakar, who says that inner freedom is absolute, and is the authentic opening towards the spiritual dimen- sion. This spiritual dimension is what allows the feather or leaf to remain suspended, without the force of gravity. But in painting this work, LiLeón used the “dripping” technique to allow thin strings of white to fall like raindrops along the face of the image. Rain, in meteorological terms, is the result of the condensation of water vapor in the upper levels of the atmosphere. Millions 20 Daniel, Chapter XIII

Libertad en Proceso of tiny drops of water form clouds, which eventually fall to earth in the form of rain due to (Liberty in Progress) their own weight. 2013 In Lidia León’s piece, these white droplets that trickle down the paper represent human be- Ink on paper ings, whose lives are conditioned by systems of power –which can be overcome through 112 x 82 cm the exercise of free will, finally reaching that dimension where the force of gravity is no more. But as is written in the book of nature, bodies are never in perpetual or constant states, only continuous transformation. It is her own personal transformation, that has allowed her to evaporate towards the ce- lestial spheres, that Lidia describes in this enigmatic composition. 95

á RB O L CORAZóN 96