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Fantasy is not a means to evade reality, but rather a more pleasant way of approaching it.
Michael Ende.
The ordinary objects in Glenda León’s artwork grace it with a carefully argued, quasi utopian entelechy, which unquestionably brings us closer to reality when contemplating her work. Her personal touch is distinctive, authoritative, peculiar, and physical, where raw material, such as chewed bubble gum or strands of hair, directly interacts with the artwork, making this form of artistic intervention her personal signature.
After discovering at a very young age that her relationship with ballet came directly from music, the element of synchronization between two artistic demonstrations, then translated into an instrument, guides her career and becomes a representative and recognizable component of her work. Hinting that the importance of art is not within the material itself, but in the manner in which the piece is concocted. Glenda León reaffirms this through a new artistic vision that is in no way reductionist, but rather more integrative, multi-conceptual, even nearing deconstruction.
Her perpetual search on how to express an experience aesthetically has led her to dissect her art in an uncommon manner, since she sees in the most graceful and ordinary objects a metamorphic and philosophical connotation that she translates into a mirror of her intention. Everything she sees and encounters is an element for the representation of her work. Her art is therapy and her therapy is a claim, and simultaneously, this claim is the end result of a contemporary representation of daily elements that with a twist creates an experience that moves in light of conflict, message, public space, and intimacy.
Her way of doing photography emerges from an intervention into the public sphere, implying the emotional state of the individual as a participant in the artwork, and of his inherently ambiguous behavior. These traits are clearly discernable in her work Todas las Flores (All the Flowers), (Habana, primavera 2002). In 2012, her piece Escuchando el Azar (Listening to the Chance), focuses on placing objects on a music score like musical notes, in order to stage a physical interaction with her installation which provokes a dynamic intervention and manipulation of her photos. Even though, for her, the most naïve and futile forms can express something ever so complex such as the quality of an experience, she focuses more on the catharsis that arises between the photo and its audience, where an image has the ability to sprout and expand like a pulsating root whether in public or private. It can be both powerful and seductive, as much as it can be benevolent and ungrateful. This image, those pixels and points of light, that are then revealed on ink and paper, will hold a moment, a personality, a smell, a fabric, a sound, and an identity just like that of a human being, from where a link can be established. She succeeds in creating this triangle, or trinomial, that combines the moment, lens, and perceptive awareness. Something that Glenda maneuvers with finesse.
“Every piece of art I make, I think it over and over again to see if it has something to tell me. I care deeply about the concept, about what the piece has to communicate. I ponder over it and, especially, through the title I try to ensure this communication, which doesn’t mean that I am interested in only one interpretation.”
Glenda León
The artist plays the role of a voyeur looking through the small keyhole; snooping around, stalking in disguise, waiting to see what does not want to be shown or what we don’t dare revealing, until she attains this intimate undressing that she exposes in the spotlight. She embodies our deep desire to intrude into intimacy, whether our own, that of others, or of something. She may give the impression of not being present, but she is, entirely. Displaying an isolated image devoid of argumentation is easy. When that image holds a seemingly artistic meaning, stylized by a cosmetic and intellectual process, then a synaesthesia of sorts emerges, combined within the framework of the self, a self that is governed by mediation. The aim of her work is to reach out by arousing the spectator’s emotions through a touch of seduction that, perhaps, may alter his or her way of seeing the world. Glenda León tries to find the balance between the musical objects, that she meticulously selects for their potential in evoking euphony, and their visual condition. In this way, her artistic process is a manifestation of her quest for imaged allusion to music
~ Andrea Violeta Rojas