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"Orientations"
of Cuban painter Leonel Matheu is a young Cuban artist who has defined with substance, balance, and consistency an unmistakable and exceedingly accessible language in the time since his life and professional career were turned upside down by his exile in 1993. His discourse is dominated by a world view that is as real as it is fantastic. It is a vision in which innocence takes possession of the urban landscape in full projection or is overturned onto aspects and objects in isolation to establish a testimony where there is a confluence of the innocence and vulnerability of the child. His vision is a not-so-outlandish convergence that heightens the enchantment of the artist’s imagery, moving it toward the transcendency of immediateness and, at the same time, the exaltation of that innocence as a desirable absolute. Now the artist, more and more engrossed in his universe and more secure in its vocabulary and grammar, is presenting a new exhibition, “Orientations”, at Elder Art Gallery in Charlotte, North Carolina. From its verbal immediacy, the title has much to do with the symbols that are quintessential constants for Matheu. These are the firmament, the mariner’s compass and embarkation, evoking a fragile little paper boat, accentuated by the exquisitely rich fantasy of childhood and its inexorable vulnerability. A careful study of this collection reveals that the artist continues to enrich the power of illustration as the lingua franca of our times and, in turn, the schematization of the hypnotic forms associated with the fascinating drawings of childhood. This distillation is as playful as it is communicative of a magic intelligence. The apparent simplicity of the work provides a vehicle for an intense, rich, full experience, both in its execution and in its contemplation. His work being essentially modern, and assuming the condition of modernity through an inexhaustible wealth of images that are immediately understood as nourishing elements of our experience, Matheu shows, in the spirit of the exhibition, that “orientation” is the philosophical concept that man utilized to begin his earthly journey. Clearly, with the fusion of that orientation with a narrative, he is attempting to universalize his graphic poetry. In this sense the artist, considering his work as an experience, demonstrates his certainty that we should achieve a balance between the technological environment and the social environment. He is in no way proposing the elimination of progress, but instead, that we maintain a mindfulness of its use. The iconography presented in “Orientations” is based on popular culture and contemporary graphic explorations that make us reevaluate everyday events. The artist achieves this result by familiarizing the observer with a graphic context that serves as reading and analysis of a specific environment in which the contemplator is the protagonist of his own interpretation. It is a world in which everything is a primary archetype of itself, in which everything appears to be a toy, and the child, a toy among toys. With his predilection for precise drawing, highly worked color planes, and the use of the image as metaphor through stylization, Matheu’s paintings –with such titles as Reactions, Stories are Differently Repeated, The Doubt of Infinite and Perfect Balance– are the results of the endless play that is a constitutive part of the child, and are themselves a celebration of play, a defense of innocence, and a vindication of its endurance. Because innocence –the ultimate innocence of childhood– of “baby dolls”, childhood’s first drawings, and graphic language, becomes in this work poetry as well as a beauty that questions and proposes a certitude and an enigma in its elementality. That is the secret of its effectiveness. That is its raison d’être. That is its illumination. “Orientations”, by Leonel Matheu, will open Wednesday, September 3 at Elder Art Gallery, 1427 South Boulevard, Charlotte, North Carolina. Information on the exhibition and hours can be found on: www.elderart.com. |