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Amanita

A Glimpse, Almost

Leonardo Meoni

8451 Melrose Ave, West Hollywood, CA
February 25, 2024 – March 3, 2024

AGA1
MEON.105.2024
Leonardo Meoni, Birds of a Feather, 2024, Mixed Media on Velvet, 98 7/16 x 86 5/8 in 250 x 220 cm
AGA2
MEON.104.2024
Leonardo Meoni, Saint Sebastian's Swamp, 2024, Mixed Media on Velvet, 98 7/16 x 86 5/8 in 250 x 220 cm
MEON.107.2024
Leonardo Meoni, Horses of Lisippos, 2024, Mixed media on Velvet, 98 7/16 x 86 5/8 in 250 x 220 cm
AGA3
MEON.102.2024
Leonardo Meoni, Untitled, 2024, Mixed Media on Velvet, 86 5/8 x 70 7/8 in 220 x 180 cm
MEON.101.2024
Leonardo Meoni, Little Shoe of Venus, 2024, Mixed Media on Velvet, 86 5/8 x 70 7/8 in 220 x 180 cm
AGA4

Overview

A glimpse, almost

First, there was the idea of a glimpse. And immediately after, there was the thought of an invisible boundary. In these latest works, the images live, and with them, live also their surroundings. Through a continuous repositioning of the dichotomous planes to which we have been educated: good/evil, beautiful/ugly, revealing/concealing — the dynamic devices (velvets) have shifted with a visual interest: an emptying of the center.

In my latest work, the priority of content removes the emphasis from the center of the picture; the subject, still present, remains a point of reference, but for divergence.

In an expansion or regression of vision, common to the mechanics of the photographic lens, the understated flowers discharge the taboos of things familiar to us but not fully known. The charm by which the flower is remembered, made extinct, or forgotten, transforms what could be frustratingly banal in a photograph, now into something filled with mystery.

Streams of color enclose the central scene where the palette is limited to only tones and undertones. The suggestion presents a tension between presence and absence - the negative space can imply that something is leaving, or on the other hand, arriving - challenging the visual perception. The pictorial incident becomes more pronounced by the margins of the work, which build curtains that lend ambiguity to the scene: the narrowing alludes to an end and a dissolution.

The scenes glimpsed between the curtains are incomplete, sending only signals — images that do not allow for planned conclusions and meaning.

I am addicted to images: there is too much light, there are too many useless images, there is a kind of fiction, a masquerade all around us. I can only lose myself and fall in love with images hidden and obscured.

— Leonardo Meoni