Liliane Dardot translates into paintings the power and appeal of nature
The Minas-born artist exploits the magnetism and beauty of the scrubland’s plants in an exhibition at Roberto Alban Galeria
The characteristics of the soil, the colors of the earth, the quality of air, the incidence of light; everything in the work of the awarded artist Liliane Dardot evokes plants and nature, especially the scrubland’s vegetation, which appeals to her for “the resilience, for the capacity of developing in the most adverse situations”. The result of this observation and enchantment journey may be seen in the exhibition No Oco das Horas, from June 6th at Roberto Alban Galeria, in Ondina. The exhibition is on until July 7th, from Monday to Friday, from 10:00am to 7:00pm; and Saturdays from 10:00am to 1:00pm.
“We are nature beings. Like the plants that transform themselves and adapt to the environment, regulate their cycles according to climate, search for water in the depths, turn to light, find the most varied ways to propagate themselves, we also depend on harmony to survive. Contemporary life drives us away from a direct contact with the environment in all its aspects. Ecological awareness is very important”, says Liliane Dardot, who recently participated in the prestigious exhibition Radical Women: Latin American Art, at Brookling Museum, New York, USA.
Born in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Liliane Dardot graduated from the Fine Arts School of the UFMG (Federal University of Minas Gerais), but it was in Pernambuco, from 1978, that she started to build her career, participating in the creation of the Oficina Guaianases de Gravuras. When she went back to Minas Gerais, twelve years later, she expanded her participation in group exhibitions and art shows, receiving several national awards. She also started her international career, participating in art biennials in countries like Mexico, Colombia, England and Germany.
By then, Liliane had already been enticed by a new object of admiration and study: nature. “When I came back from Pernambuco, together with other artists, we started to build ateliers in semidetached sheds in a neighborhood in Belo Horizonte that was at that time scarcely occupied. And there, around the atelier, there was the sertão! In the vacant lots, a scrubland vegetation. All my attention was directed to the plants: the power of that beauty that most people couldn’t see. First came the drawings, filling notebooks; in parallel, the imaginary of the vegetal forms, invading the paintings.”
Technically, Liliane Dardot’s painting is deeply rooted in her experience with lithography. The construction of the colors occurs through a very particular process of layer overlapping. “I do not work with manufactured paints; I prepare my paints with an acrylic medium and pigments of pure colors. The characteristics of my atelier, where it’s possible to work with natural light throughout the day, allow me to notice the variations in the paintings’ visibility according to the light that strikes”, reveals the artist.
For the exhibition at Roberto Alban Galeria, Liliane Dardot selected 15 large paintings. But besides the canvases, the artist also included an installation called ET ERAT NOX, where through immersion she intends to provide an alteration in our ordinary way of experiencing time, especially what characterizes the contemporary world. It’s a large suspended column, black, of 6.20m in height, obtained through the articulation of a sequence of skirts which is projected to the top of the gallery’s space. “It’s possible to enter this enigmatic volume and then a new dimension is revealed, created by the light of the gallery’s large space without any other technological resource. The relation between space and time, light and darkness, the limit and the unlimited, mental image and real image, inside and out, the face and the reverse blend in a poetical experience”, explains the artist.
Liliane Dardot’s work has unfolded in other fields besides painting and drawing. Some time ago she started to develop an interest in installations and actions happening in specific places. The object of one of her interventions was the popular names of the plants, especially of the ones from the sertão and took shape in the cities of Cordisburgo, São João d’el Rei and Belo Horizonte, in Minas Gerais. “People walked on the text and read it and even formed new words. It was the challenge of imagining how those plants would be and also the pleasure of recognizing some of them. The execution of the work itself, made with the help of local kids, involved gestures that recalled sowing”, remembers Dardot.
For the scholar and visual art critic Márcio Sampaio, great supporter of the work of the Minas’ artists, Liliane Dardot stands out for the special relationship built with her object of study, nature. “Paints, earth, pigments are prepared and used as literal fertilizers to make shapes blossom. The material has its time of action, decantation, impregnation, its maturing, in the almost microscopic transformation operated by the sedimentation of these mixtures, until that finally, this precious harvest named painting can be picked”, writes Sampaio in the text that presents the exhibition. .
Exhibition: No Oco das Horas/ Liliane Dardot
Opening: June 6th, at 8:00pm
Hours: from June 7th to July 7th (Monday to Friday, 10:00am to 7:00pm; Saturdays, 10:00am to 1:00pm)
Venue: Roberto Alban Galeria
Address: Rua Senta Pua, 53, Ondina
Phone: 3243-3982/ 3326-5633