Sculptures
An Inauguration of an exhibition of Bronze Sculptures by Liliana Fleri Soler to be held on Thursday 17th November 2011, In the Presence of Mrs.Marina Vryonidou-Yiangou, Director and Curator of the Marfin Laiki Bank Cultural Centre in Nicosia, Cyprus.
SCULPTURES by Liliana Fleri Soler
“OF THE ABOUT TO DO”
The art scene in Malta is immersed in culture, history and centuries old aesthetics. But which while it pertains to have an enlightened history in both art and culture, it is nevertheless deeply embedded in religious restraints and conformities that define specific roles based mainly on gender and social status and assumptions.
Assumptions about a woman’s weakness and passivity; her sexual availability for men’s needs; her domestic and nurturing function; her existence as an object rather than a creator of art - all assumptions based on a stereotyped view about the world that are a consequence of social, cultural and religious heritage.
BUT THOUGHTS THAT ARE RARELY SPOKEN AND IDEAS THAT ARE QUESTIONABLE, EVEN OBJECTIONABLE CAN AND DO MANIFEST THEMSELVES THROUGH ART.
Liliana Fleri Soler was born in Malta and a graduate of the University of Malta. In 1996 she decided to give up her teaching career and devote her energy to art. She is primarily a self-taught artist whose work delves into imagery derived from the human situation and is expressed through painting, sculpture and assemblage. Recurrent subject material is the environment, life and death but always in relation to the feminine...
As Liliana says: “Whether one likes it or not, a female is a female...”
Liliana and I met a few years ago and shared common views on many beliefs and ideals. Don’t imagine any huge feminist outbursts but simple talks about our lives and circumstances, about our personal aspirations, about what others expect of us. Our thoughts, our fears, our strengths and weaknesses, our need to leave our mark, to express our views verbally, artistically, metaphorically...
For me the word that best describes Liliana is restless. One minute she says: “We always seem to be living in parallel worlds...not being able to explain simple things which we feel and experience...we are always somewhere in between...” Next minute she is standing her ground and declaring: “running...running away from what?”...“Transformation only begins when you really ‘see yourself’ when you recognise who you really are.”
Through a series of sculptures that are in essence the physical manifestations of Liliana’s IDEOLOGY, of what it is to be a woman, she draws us into her world: “A cast of characters on a stage, playing a part in the female world” and while “they appear to be solitary figures, they are really interconnected by an invisible thread of thoughts”
Liliana’s thoughts: “Instead of performing the “movement” myself, I make a “puppet”, dress her up and place her on a stage, she is an alter ego.
In each form there is a situation or a condition that creates a fleeting instant that makes us look closer. Some of us may see a performance, others an expression, most of us notions of ourselves. Throughout this body of work there is feeling of the everyday, the everyone, the everything.
Each sculpture is a little “performance” of a fleeting moment... or of a gesture... of the “ABOUT TO DO”.
Marina Vryonidou-Yiangou
From 19 November, 2011, until 29 February, 2012