©2010 Adrienne Leban

biography | artist's statement | resume

THE VISUAL ART OF ADRIENNE LEBAN

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

My art is surprising--not least of all, to me. Working without a pre-visualized outcome in mind, I consider such foreknowledge a burden that clogs the energy flow. I have never consciously chosen the themes and forms that have so coherently emerged during the forty years of my adult productivity. As a practical matter, I am a conduit of the vibratory energy (or, constantly moving force) that manifests as or "through" me, and thus through my drawing, painting, and digital work. Physics as much as art history informs my work.

In the early 1970s, I began drawing freehand grids and coaxing from them a luminous geometric pattern by using shaded, or chiaroscuro corners. In the appearance of light-through-shadow in the flat geometry I rendered, I recognized the influence of the Flemish and Italian masters of chiaroscuro which still inspire me. Intuitively creating this new (at least, for me) means of achieving the luminosity I loved while avoiding the necessity of mimesis, gave me incentive to continue working without knowing beforehand what I was going to produce. No easy task for a highly analytical perfectionist, to just relinquish the usual method of concept-to-sketch-to-polished-finished-product, but the freedom and revelation I continue to experience and evince in my work are for me incentives that far surpass the ordinary route to mastery.

Although my work looks completely planned, it isn't at all. I achieve a marriage of spontaneity with control by a simple reassignment of the role of technique. By utilizing technique as an end in itself to satisfy my desire for detail, precision, and control, I set myself free from the limiting obligation of a foreseen conclusion (although, I am aware that desire does function as a preconception of sorts). I am not interested in using technique to reproduce ideas, but rather to bring them into being in the first place so that I may discover them. One discovery is that the "ideas" which emerge are not narrative or symbolic of something not present. Rather, in this process-oriented paradigm an idea is the actual presence of the unique thing-in-itself that appears. I suspect that I physically intuit the biomorphic forms that I construct geometrically, which often remind me of my biological being. These structures resemble intestinal, organ-like, tubal, sinewy, or microbial forms, as well as atomic, and macro- and microcosmic realms. I call this intuitively created unity of the biological and geometrical, my "bio-geo" work.

Starting from about 1969, my work has been mesmerizing. My earliest paintings (e.g., 12 Spirals, 1974) and my hand drawn linear geometry of the 1970s (e.g., Inner Energy: 24 Drawings to Manifest the Self, Autumn Press, 1979), take consciousness to a new place by locating the doer/viewer in the moment, free of symbolism and narrative which distract attention from the instant experience of being. For doer and viewer, the work is akin to meditation, a means to slow down and be present. These '70s India ink-and-ruler drawings, done with considerable precision, create a prismatic effect, stimulating color in the eye to fill in color on the black and white page--another unintended consequence of my geometric channeling. The themes of light and vibration, repetition and rhythm emerged during this period. The hypnotic effect that results strengthens the mind in terms of concentration and relaxation, and has recurred in my various forms through the decades.

The oil paintings of the 1980s all visually anticipate the computer generated geometric solids that today comprise digital modeling in its myriad applications (animation, product design, scientific modeling, etc.). Still influenced by the early Western masters, these paintings also pay tribute to 20th century cartoon history--especially Disney Studios, a tremendous source of visual (not narrative) inspiration during my childhood. Like these paintings, the round, lively forms of my most recent series of freehand drawings in black and white, and in color, resonate with the buoyant friendliness of cartoons drawn and animated for the screen, while suggesting other-worldliness.

During the 1990s, I created my geometric energy fields with a computer, which I had begun using in 1983 to create simple geometric animations. The computer enabled me to delve further into the possibilities inherent in a single form, a visual theme and variations, as well as pattern formation, actual animation, and intensified luminosity. This period of digital exploration culminated in 2002 with A New Vision for Peace: Mandalas for September Eleventh, a meditation on the shared understandings social beings need for coexistence.

After nearly a decade working in the disembodied digital realm, in 2003 I entered an unusually prolific phase of freehand drawings, done without sketches or instruments other than pens, in India ink directly on wood, watercolor paper, or canvas. They synthesize and elaborate my prior themes. I have continuously explored the energy produced through both simple and complicated geometric fields of intuitively constructed linear patterns or biomorphic shapes formed by implied geometric solids. Hints of neural networks or string/brane [sic] theory, suggestions of cellular biology, and intimations of deep sea life forms emerge from my mediumistic process.

This new work, as my earlier work, radiates constant motion, change, and luminosity, emerging spontaneously from my "bio-geo" vehicle for tapping the animating energy that constitutes life. These drawings operate on multiple and paradoxical levels--as does my entire lifework of visual manifestation, at once sensual/organic/erotic yet mechanical; non-mimetic yet illusionistic; meticulous and ridiculous, as well as strangely familiar while unique. And, it still surprises me.

Adrienne Leban
New York City, 2008