K-Leonard’s artist

MAGALI LÉONARD

The Cosmogonie series, an on-going group of abstract paintings, was begun in 2007. While they have changed over time, these works share a sense of movement and space evoked through fluid color. Recently the paintings have alluded to the primal elements of earth, air, fire, and water. The canvases are full of resonances, echoes of the cosmos, its elements and its light. They suggest a universe without borders, which is always in the process of becoming.

The paintings are not the result of deliberate thought, but instead come from an immediate, personal energy that is put into action. These are not representations,  narratives, or allegories, and they do not rely on aesthetic theory. Rather, this work requires the magnitude of the life force for its realization. The artist’s whole body is involved in the paintings’ expansive gestures. Her rhythmic movements around the canvas are often similar to dancing, and her breath takes an active part in the process.

            The work is created in the flow of time. Fluid color must be controlled in the act of creation, while working on resistant or absorbent canvas. The meeting of these elements produces a sensation and an action, in a kind of hand-to-hand combat. While working moment to moment, the flows of color condense into form. This energetic approach allows gestures to develop, and space to be discovered and organized.

            Arising from this process is a sense of indeterminate space, the focus for the gaze of each new viewer.“ The aim in these paintings is to capture what appears suddenly in the moment, to take hold of the instantaneous.”