ART VIDEO
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
2 O 1 5 - 2 O O 5
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
1. CATALOGUE APOCALYPTIC BLACK MIRRORS
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
Multiple extracts of "Black Holes Devouring Industrial Net" Made for The 56 International Art Exhibition-La Biennale di Venezia, Pavilion of Ecuador Dubai 2O15
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
The Quantum link
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
David Rosenberg Paris, mars 2016
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
À propos “Gold Water: Apocalyptic Black Mirrors II”, an exhibition of Maria Veronica Leon V. at Macro Museum, Roma.
A major shift in global conscience: that's how we can describe the event that occurred when Ecuador became the first country to officially acknowledge and recognize the imprescriptible right of Nature and its ecosystems to exist and flourish, and consequently the right for the Nature to be cured or restored in case of aggression. It's an unprecedented legal, political and spiritual event, which took place in 2008 when the new constitution was adopted and Nature was defined as a subject of right. This « vision » or conception of the world unifies two trends of thought, one related to late development of environmentalism, incarnated bymilitants like Hugo Echeverría, a famous lawyer working in Ecuador; the other is related to the natives of Ecuador who firmly believe in the concept of « Pacha Mama » or Mother Earth.
Maria Veronica Leon V, a famous native Ecuadorian artist who currently lives and works in Dubai, perpetuating and transcending in her very own way this rich heritage. Through her life, her commitment and her art, she invites us to renew, reinvent and rebuild the core relation we have with Nature, with ourselves and with the essence of the reality.Why are we here? What are we supposed to do? What is the nature of our dreams and visions? Why are we embodied in a visceral habitat that binds us to a cosmic dimension?It is indeed a deep questioning, but following Maria Veronica on her path of creation, we feel that the answers are all bound to our innate creativity.
Regarding the personal level, we can say that Maria Veronica has also merged and revisited the spiritual legacy of her parents. Her mother was a painter and her father a politician, an intellectual and a humanist figure in Ecuador. Herself, as a young child started to express herself vividly, first through drawings and paintings, and later on while studying art, expanding her research to various medium, like videos or performances that she practiced in New York, Cuba, Paris and Venice among many other places before living in Dubai.Social and spiritual conscience, travels, boarders crossing (and/or limits), various cultures and traditions blending, the mixing of verbal and non verbal approaches (like dance or guttural singing)... These are some of the different aspects of her art and life today.
In that sense, the artistic and philosophical approach of Maria Veronica Leon V — visceral and technological, intuitive and conceptual —, is unique in its essence. Following the great success of the Ecuadorian pavillon that held during the last Biennale di Venezia, the artist reactivates and reformulates, for the Macro Museum in Rome, the art-environment that she had previously conceived in Venice. As a woman and as an artist, she felt a great sense of responsibility when she was officially commissioned to conceive the national pavillon. Fully aware of the syndrome of « artistic provincialism », Maria Veronica still wanted to be able to talk about Ecuador as a whole (id est, speaking-outloud for Quito and La Sierra but also for The Coast region), but she also felt the urge and the need to carry auniversal topic; in that case: Gold and Water.
After several conversations with the artist, I understood how bright and pertinent was her choice. It's not about the « lieux communs » or « clichés » concerning human greed,the capitalistic system or environmental problems — even though it's a substantial part of what Maria Veronica is dealing with. First, it binds us to the long story of the South-American continent and her ancestors, the great Incas and the pre-Colombian societies. And as the artist progresses in her work, she transforms herself physically, slow turning into an extra- terrestrial or mythical figure: secret and sacred rituals, masks, screams and dreams... It is as we are travelling in time, going back to a mysterious past, which is also the key to our future.
As her native country, the « Pacha Mama » (Mother Earth) and her ancestors are all intrinsic and constitutive part of herself, so is the water. And that simple truth resonates in many fields like quantum physics, cosmology, biology and psychology. Among many texts, here is what Maria Veronica writes about it: « We feel the churning power of the oceans and seas, interconnected in an energetic therapy, building barriers to resist industry’s atrocities;generating a second dimension of existence, where universal cosmic energy gives birth to a centric universal nucleus, from where an explosion of new fountains irrigates old affected waters and a new cosmic galaxy emerge. Waters’ new energy isstronger than industry ».
White light, blue water, dark stars, green dollars, gold and oven are like various aspects of our body-mind-spirit connection and therefore part of an « œuvre d'art total », mixing video, etching, photography and performance, producing what the artists define as « techno-theater », or « techno-opera », blending new philosophical and sociological approach with esoteric and hermetic tradition. That's how Maria Veronica embarks us on a physical and spiritual journey,a quest formeaning and self-reflection exploring a metaphoric Eldorado where Gold and Water reveal themselves as our ultimate fate, the alpha & omega of our human destiny.
The exhibition unfolds and spreads in various parts of the museum, inviting the visitors to discover in a progressive manner the various works exhibited. Definingher own territory, the artist uses the existing exhibition structures but she also creates new ones by bringing an industrial container into the space of the museum. It's like a womb, amine settlement or an athanor (the oven of the alchemist). Visually, the various works displayed at Macro Museum oscillate between kaleidoscopic and hypnotic geometry and oversized expressive self-portraits.
Primary matters, Nature and the body of the artist turn into vectors of artistic expression: it's an integrative process where concepts, thoughts and emotions blend and resonate in various ways, reaching a point of incandescence where a new state of mind is created, reborn and purified.
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
MARIA VERONICA
Planet Pupiter Dubai 2O15
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
Virtual Parallel Universes Dubai 2O15
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
Filling Physical Life Dubai 2O15
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
Solar Industrial Star Dubai 2O15
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
Acqua Crystal Genesis Dubai 2O15
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
Untitled Dubai 2O15
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
Loving Gold Water Star Dubai 2O15
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
Water Vaults and Water Doors Dubai 2O15
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
Iluminati Round Table Dubai 2O15
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
Greenish Light on Capture Waters Dubai 2O15
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
Industrial Acupunture Dubai 2O15
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
Summum Gold Birds Dubai 2O15
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
Radiation Through Spikes Dubai 2O15
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
Defenders on Command Dubai 2O15
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
Shiny Regents Defending Water Dubai 2O15
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
MARIA VERONICA
Black Hole Devouring Freezing Industrial Net Dubai 2O15
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
Post-industrial Web Irruption Dubai 2O15
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
"D A R K B L U E V I S I O N S"
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
Maria Veronica Leon V Dubai, 2O15
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
The human right to water is fundamental and indispensable, inalienable, indefeasible and essential for life. Water is a common ultimate good. Its sources and channels that once seemed so limitless are drying up. Historically, no notion of protecting water or bottling it for human consumption existed, but rules change and international water conferences as well as communities worldwide have studied water systems and redefined their rational use.
Ecuador became the first country in the world to codify the Rights of Nature, a pioneer in the global environmental sector. Ecuadorian Constitution recognize the inalienable rights of ecosystems to exist and flourish, giving people the authority to petition on the behalf of ecosystems, and requiring the government to remedy violations of these rights; so that rivers and forests maintain their own right to exist and are not just a property. Under these laws, for example, a citizen can file a lawsuit on behalf of an injured channel, recognizing that the health of the water source is crucial for the common good.
The vibrant protagonist for the exhibition is video art. Overlapping time sequences of water emerge from a distant past catapulting it into an abstract location in the future where the world apocalyptic reality of contamination and obscurity disappear. I choose video as the ideal technique, since its movements allow me to show by series the similar phases of black apocalypses that different cultures live in parallel times. Video takes me to the representation and abstraction of the high-tech industry irruption in the soul of human beings.
The sound of machines hammering our psyches are the hammering actions of capitalism excesses, that day to day demands to be prostrated at its feet. Steal barriers, metallic cuts, black holes where Earth loses its identity, steal stains, heavy and deafening structures, obliging men to give up their territory.
The totalitarian excesses of the Industry have irrupted nature, damaged its health, and affected the ecosystem. Money is “the saint” and the punisher, the one that creates nature’s darkness, and it causes a duel reflected into the future, in successive mirrors of apocalyptic reflections that will destroy the Humanity.
We need flowing water in order to live, love and have light. "Water of Light, Water of Life." The internal vision needs to be intricate to the external one,so that what is inside is reflected in the outside world. Water is suffering, drying up and dying, being infected by man’s brutality; water begins to exist with “artificial breathing” on an man-made life support system. In the videos the light blue tubes allow oxygen to enter, a treatment to cleanse and reanimate water intravenously.
We feel the churning power of the oceans and seas, interconnected in an energetic therapy, building barriers to resist industry’s atrocities; generating a second dimension of existence, where universal cosmic energy gives birth to a centric universal nucleus, from where an explosion of new fountains irrigates old affected waters erupts and a new cosmic galaxy emerge. Waters’ new energy is stronger than industry.
Video offers a perfect choreographic interplay between these present and future realities, and generates a singular visual reading that symbolizes new codesof freedom in the face of capitalistic disaster and destruction. Surrealistic and symbolic visions illustrate water, present and future, spring from an imagined sense of a collective elevated consciousness, with greater respect for water and to what it means to Humanity.
The shadow of darkness passes from a futuristic perspective; darkness vanishes, the industrial machine as well, the round table of the Illuminati is devoured by the black holes, only the shadow is left, dark mafias disappeared; the dimension of the dollar gets lost and enters the plane of memory, the metallic stars lose their force and an enlightened human being arises that represents the new collective consciousness that sustains the world in a contemporary awakening. Tomorrow the currency will be water, air, health and survivorship and new codes.
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
Google Cultural Institute, Pavilion of Ecuador
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
MARIA VERONICA
The Quantum link
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
David Rosenberg Paris, mars 2016
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
À propos “Gold Water: Apocalyptic Black Mirrors II”, an exhibition of Maria Veronica Leon V. at Macro Museum, Roma.
A major shift in global conscience: that's how we can describe the event that occurred when Ecuador became the first country to officially acknowledge and recognize the imprescriptible right of Nature and its ecosystems to exist and flourish, and consequently the right for the Nature to be cured or restored in case of aggression. It's an unprecedented legal, political and spiritual event, which took place in 2008 when the new constitution was adopted and Nature was defined as a subject of right. This « vision » or conception of the world unifies two trends of thought, one related to late development of environmentalism, incarnated bymilitants like Hugo Echeverría, a famous lawyer working in Ecuador; the other is related to the natives of Ecuador who firmly believe in the concept of « Pacha Mama » or Mother Earth.
Maria Veronica Leon V, a famous native Ecuadorian artist who currently lives and works in Dubai, perpetuating and transcending in her very own way this rich heritage. Through her life, her commitment and her art, she invites us to renew, reinvent and rebuild the core relation we have with Nature, with ourselves and with the essence of the reality.Why are we here? What are we supposed to do? What is the nature of our dreams and visions? Why are we embodied in a visceral habitat that binds us to a cosmic dimension?It is indeed a deep questioning, but following Maria Veronica on her path of creation, we feel that the answers are all bound to our innate creativity.
Regarding the personal level, we can say that Maria Veronica has also merged and revisited the spiritual legacy of her parents. Her mother was a painter and her father a politician, an intellectual and a humanist figure in Ecuador. Herself, as a young child started to express herself vividly, first through drawings and paintings, and later on while studying art, expanding her research to various medium, like videos or performances that she practiced in New York, Cuba, Paris and Venice among many other places before living in Dubai.Social and spiritual conscience, travels, boarders crossing (and/or limits), various cultures and traditions blending, the mixing of verbal and non verbal approaches (like dance or guttural singing)... These are some of the different aspects of her art and life today.
In that sense, the artistic and philosophical approach of Maria Veronica Leon V — visceral and technological, intuitive and conceptual —, is unique in its essence. Following the great success of the Ecuadorian pavillon that held during the last Biennale di Venezia, the artist reactivates and reformulates, for the Macro Museum in Rome, the art-environment that she had previously conceived in Venice. As a woman and as an artist, she felt a great sense of responsibility when she was officially commissioned to conceive the national pavillon. Fully aware of the syndrome of « artistic provincialism », Maria Veronica still wanted to be able to talk about Ecuador as a whole (id est, speaking-outloud for Quito and La Sierra but also for The Coast region), but she also felt the urge and the need to carry auniversal topic; in that case: Gold and Water.
After several conversations with the artist, I understood how bright and pertinent was her choice. It's not about the « lieux communs » or « clichés » concerning human greed,the capitalistic system or environmental problems — even though it's a substantial part of what Maria Veronica is dealing with. First, it binds us to the long story of the South-American continent and her ancestors, the great Incas and the pre-Colombian societies. And as the artist progresses in her work, she transforms herself physically, slow turning into an extra- terrestrial or mythical figure: secret and sacred rituals, masks, screams and dreams... It is as we are travelling in time, going back to a mysterious past, which is also the key to our future.
As her native country, the « Pacha Mama » (Mother Earth) and her ancestors are all intrinsic and constitutive part of herself, so is the water. And that simple truth resonates in many fields like quantum physics, cosmology, biology and psychology. Among many texts, here is what Maria Veronica writes about it: « We feel the churning power of the oceans and seas, interconnected in an energetic therapy, building barriers to resist industry’s atrocities;generating a second dimension of existence, where universal cosmic energy gives birth to a centric universal nucleus, from where an explosion of new fountains irrigates old affected waters and a new cosmic galaxy emerge. Waters’ new energy isstronger than industry ».
White light, blue water, dark stars, green dollars, gold and oven are like various aspects of our body-mind-spirit connection and therefore part of an « œuvre d'art total », mixing video, etching, photography and performance, producing what the artists define as « techno-theater », or « techno-opera », blending new philosophical and sociological approach with esoteric and hermetic tradition. That's how Maria Veronica embarks us on a physical and spiritual journey,a quest formeaning and self-reflection exploring a metaphoric Eldorado where Gold and Water reveal themselves as our ultimate fate, the alpha & omega of our human destiny.
The exhibition unfolds and spreads in various parts of the museum, inviting the visitors to discover in a progressive manner the various works exhibited. Definingher own territory, the artist uses the existing exhibition structures but she also creates new ones by bringing an industrial container into the space of the museum. It's like a womb, amine settlement or an athanor (the oven of the alchemist). Visually, the various works displayed at Macro Museum oscillate between kaleidoscopic and hypnotic geometry and oversized expressive self-portraits.
Primary matters, Nature and the body of the artist turn into vectors of artistic expression: it's an integrative process where concepts, thoughts and emotions blend and resonate in various ways, reaching a point of incandescence where a new state of mind is created, reborn and purified.
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome 2016
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M u s e u m o f C o n t e m p o r a r y A r t G u a y a q u i l
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
E c u a d o r 2 0 0 5
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
Juan Castro y Velazquez, Art Historian and Critic Guayaquil, 2005
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
I see my reflection in a mirror. I do not see myself, what I see in an image of me. If I copy my image from the mirror it would be a self-portrait: a reflection of a reflection. In a similar way, if I use the camera to capture what is in front of me, I see an ephemera moment, but what it is really is a reflection. These kind of physical processes are in the catoptrics and are part of the action showed in visual arts. Universally the portrait is the more extended part of these processes and also one of the less understood. However, the portrait or the action of making a portrait is like the concept of our existential condition and it is inseparable in every human being. The genetic similarity with which is unique to every species, the phenomena of mimetic assimilation, to get the plastic transformations in the human being appearances, refers to complex and exciting subjects in life processes and social behaviors. Maria Veronica Leon has dedicated a considerable part of her work to the portrait as its own unique genre and she makes the reflection the action in the painting: reflection upon reflection. As a contemporary artist, she is committed to the traditions of the past and the ancestral myths that we can see with the first vision of the reflected image of the face. This should remind us of the ancient Greek myth of Narcissus, who falls in love with his own reflection and when trying to kiss it falls in to the water, drowning, leaving only the circular waves that disappear little by little. Until the 19th century, the universe of mirrors was one of complex symbolism, with its own precise characteristics. The mirror used to be referred to as “psyche” because it was believed that the soul was translated in the reflection. Today, mirrors have become banal. The latest work of Maria Veronica has been inspired by one of the most extraordinary places in the world: the magical and mysterious Venice, where she sees the city itself reflecting its own beauty on its waters in self perdition, in renewal with the myth of Narcissus. The intelligent and reflective visual process of Maria Veronica, brings us a very interesting mix of options: From the painted canvas, to the painted mirrors and the cybernetics medias, a complex conjugation of options that re-visualize key moments in art history such as “Venus at Her Mirror” by Velázquez. When she paints over mirrors or transparent supports, she transports herself and the observer to perceive the concrete limits of the surface. Inside a transparent cube she undertakes her performance, in which is melts inside her own image, disappearing, creating another mythic version of Narcissus. Based on these points, we can see the same process takes place in the visual arts and in literature: what I write, what I tell, and what I do is a reflection of my psyche, and it is this reflection that is projected out of the mirror and into this world. In this state, the smile is perfect: ut pictura poesis, I am and my reflection is my alter ego. It is another self separated, visual yet, not attainable, and this is the soul that art makes a living face to face.
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
5 2 B i e n n a l e d i V e n e z i a
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
Maria Veronica Leon, The Unravelling Thread
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
Ileana Cornea, art critic and curator Paris, 2008
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
Her pen moves quickly, blackening the blank page, threads overlapping, stretching and finally taking shape. The organic joins the plant world, pouring out sap, the female body is a secret landscape, a palpitating constellation, a changing topography, a tapestry recounting intimate stories.
It’s the family of Valentine Hugo, Unica Zün, Dora Maar, Léonore Fini, Toyen, and all those whose names have been forgotten, whose line Maria Veronica Leon continues. She belongs to the family of women who brought awareness of the female inner consciousness to the history of art.
Woman considers herself of the cosmos, feels she is part of the telluric and chthonian forces; she is the incarnation of nature.
Maria Veronica instinctively interprets the female body like a living spring, ceaselessly contorting and recomposing itself.
Her drawings are of the utmost precision.Having lived and worked with Pina Bausch’s dance company, she was able to embody in her drawingsthe energy driving the movements and spirit of the German choreographer. Her drawings develop the dreamlike quality of the body depicted,the metaphor of the being belonging to the universal vibration.
The Ecuadorian artist secretes thread like an insect,like Penelope working on her interminable creation.Guts, nerves, arteries, synapses,this is the living nature of the troubled body, the loving body, the lascivious body, the offered body and the body dancing.
She draws the symbolic thread, Ariana’s thread, entering the intimate labyrinth, the feminine condition, the above and the below blendinginto one.
Her paintings inherit this pen stroke which goes on into infinity and is peculiar to her. In her portrait gallery, you’re drawn in by thedetails of the richly worked costumes, the thread increasing the complexity of its turns and blending with colour:
Bits of abstract lace, fluted threads, come together and separate, creepers, complicated and gilded textures; the artist comes from a country where gold symbolises the sun and the silver is moon dust.
Does she retain a memory of this special system of writing that consisted of knots made in woollen cords?
Incan dignitaries used quipu to record the economic and demographic data of the regions they managed and chaskis, the messengers and deliverymen of the kingdom, used them as a map for their routes.
Maria Veronica Leon undoes all the knots of the history of the Incas, adjusting her threads to other artistic languages, like Klimt who brought a glow to the Ravenna mosaics in the reborn modern Vienna.
In her recent canvases, the face of her figures disappears behind a sophisticated mask. Long entangled threads and umbilical cords make and remake the spun thread, and, like Frida Kahlo, the spinner seals the history of her own life. A work of memory like an abstract tapestry with the vibrant colours, the fiery colours reminiscent of the hell in the illuminations of the Hortus deliciarum compiled by Herrade de Landsberg.
Video is her other means of expression. It’s a means of expression for travellers like me, says the artist.
What difference is there between one medium and another when we want to say something about us?
And once again, it’s always the organic palpitation she portrays. In Pinky, the sequence of images is measured and emphasised by sound.
This video is subtly made, with a sequence of abstract, gelatinous and humid images, like a story with a beginning and an end. Like in her drawings, the artist blurs the boundaries, the internal and the external blend together. Unlike the worrying strangeness in the Surrealist imagination, in this video, she is describing the strangeness of pleasures.
Liquidity as a theme, as a material,is present in her videos as well as the memory of gold harking back to the origins of a royal Ecuador.
Of all the cities in Europe where she’s stayed, only the city of Venice pays homage to both water and gold, to these two elements overlapping in their symbolism.
In this city, wrote Honoré de Balzac, they’re richer than the ten richest houses in Amsterdam, or London, richer than the Rothschilds, infact richer than the Thousand and One Nights (Palace).
As for her video entitled White Tea-White, her reverie revolves around the mandorle, or the mystical almond symbolising the passage from one world to another, the passage from the interior to the exterior, the passage from burgeoning secrecy to the obviousness of the day.
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
Maria Veronica Leon, le trait qui file
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
Ileana Cornea critique d’art et curateur Paris, 2008
Son stylo à bille glisse rapidement noircissant la feuille vierge, desfils se chevauchant, s’étirant et finissant par prendre forme. L’organique rejoint le végétal dégorgeant de sève, le corps féminin est un secret paysage, une constellation palpitante, une cartographie changeante, une tapisserie racontant des histoires intimes.
C’est de la famille de Valentine Hugo, d’Unica Zün, de Dora Maar, de Léonore Fini, de Toyen, et de toutes celles dont on a oublié le nom dont Maria Veronica Leon vient et complète la lignée. Elle appartient à la famille des femmes qui apportèrent à l’histoire de l’art la conscience de l’intériorité féminine.
La femme se pense cosmique, se sent appartenir aux forces telluriques et chtoniennes, elle est l’incarnation de la grande nature.
Maria Veronica interprète instinctivement le corps de la femme comme un ressort vivant se désarticulant, se recomposant sans cesse.
Ses dessins sont de la plus grande justesse. Ayant vécu et travaillé avec la troupe de Pina Bausch, elle a su incarner dans ses dessins l’énergie animant les mouvements et l’esprit de la chorégraphe allemande. Ses dessins développent la valeur onirique du corps représenté,la métaphore de l’être appartenant à la vibration universelle.
L’artiste équatorienne sécrète le fil comme un insecte, comme Pénélope travaillant à son interminable ouvrage. Des boyaux,nerfs, artères,synapses,c’est la nature vivante du corps inquiet, du corps amoureux, du corps lascif du corps offert, du corps qui danse.
Elle tire le fil symbolique,le fil d’Ariane, pénétrant le labyrinthe intime,la condition féminine, le dessous et le dessus se confondant
Ses peintures héritent ce trait du stylo qui court à l’infini et qui lui est particulier. Dans sa galerie de portraits, on se laisse prendre dans les détails des costumes richement travaillés, le fil complexifie ses tours en s’unissant à la couleur :
Des pans de dentelleries abstraites, des fils cannelés, s’unissent, se séparent, lianes, textures compliquées et dorées, l’artiste vient d’un pays où l’or symbolise le soleil et l’argent est poudre de lune.
Garde-t-elle le souvenir de cette écriture particulière qui consistait à faire des nœuds sur des cordelettes en laine ?
Du quipu, les dignitaires Incas s’en servaient pour la gestion économique et démographique des lieux qu’ils administraient et les chaskiles postiers du royaume, le portaient avec eux pour repérer géographiquement leurs parcours.
Maria Veronica Leon défait tous les nœuds de l’histoire des Incas pour ajuster ses fils à d’autres imaginaire comme Klimt qui fit brille les mosaïques de Ravenne dans la Vienne renaissant à la modernité.
Dans ses toiles récentes, le visage de ses personnages disparaît derrière un masque sophistiqué. Des longs fils enchevêtrés, cordons ombilicaux défont et refont la filandreuse filature, et, comme Frida Kallo, la filandière scelle l’histoire de sa propre vie. Travail de mémoire telle une tapisserie abstraite aux couleurs vives couleurs de feu rappelant l’enfer dans les enluminures de la Hortus deliciarum d’Herrade de Landsberg.
La vidéo, est son autre moyen d’expression. C’est un moyen d’expression pour des voyageurs comme moi dit l’artiste.
Quelle différence il y a-t-il entre un support et un autre lorsque l’on veut dire quelque chose nous concernant ?
Et la encore, c’est toujours la palpitation organique qu’elle met en scène.
Dans Pinky, le son scande le déroulement des séquences.
Cette vidéo est subtilement menée. Les images abstraites, gélatineuses et humides s’enchaînent comme une histoire ayant un commencement et une fin. Comme dans ses dessins, l’artiste brouille les pistes, l’intérieur et l’extérieur malaxent leurs masses. Contrairement à l’inquiétante étrangeté dans l’imaginaire Surréaliste, cette vidéo, c’est de la jouissance dont elle décrit l’étrangeté.
La liquidité comme thématique, comme matériau est présente dans ses vidéos autant que le souvenir de l’or rappelant les origines d’un Equateur royal.
De toutes les villes d’Europe où elle a séjourné, seule la ville de Venise rend hommage à la fois à l’eau et à l’or, à ces deux éléments chevauchant leur symbolique.
Dans cette ville écrivait Honoré de Balzac, on est plus riche que ne le sont les dix maisons les plus riches d’Amsterdam, ou de Londres, plus riche que les Rothschild, enfin riches comme les Mille et Une Nuits.(Palace)
Quant à sa vidéo intitulée White Tea-White, sa rêverie tourne autour de la mandorle, ou de l’amande mystique symbolisant le passage d’un monde à un autre, le passage de l’intérieur à l’extérieur, le passage du secret en gestation à l’évidence du jour.
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
Note: This page contain just extracts of Maria Veronica' videos. If you wish to see complete videos and collection, please contact the artist to: lanoveaunee@hotmail.com
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A
M A R I A V E R O N I C A