artnexus #88

Unpicking routine objects and finding meaning for them in what she calls “the interstice between the visible and the invisible, sound and silence, the ephemeral and the eternal,” Glenda León (Havana, 1976) demonstrates a special sensibility for the everyday. León’s work reflects on the situation of contemporary individuals and the context in which they are immersed, seeking to subvert reality through the manipulation of elements around her, salvaging the value of the small-scale, everyday stuff that surrounds us yet we so often fail to notice. In her invitation to see reality afresh, León unveils for us a poetic imagination contained in the smallest details; thus the value acquired by brushes, clouds, flowers, which posit new pathways for the discovery of the quotidian. León’s works are able to activate the imagination of their observers by setting them free from their routine as she finds an active meaning for that small stuff. León’s argues for revisiting nature; in her view, when we are disconnected from nature, we are disconnected from ourselves. As she has expressed in many interviews, art brings forth the possibility of paying greater attention to the world, while elevating us both spiritually and mentally. It also makes it possible to conciliate social and political concerns with a profound poetic charge that greatly enriches the image we build of reality. “Like magic,” she says, “art is an act of transformation that on occasion translates into a simple making of coincidence.” The artwork on the cover of ArtNexus, Wasted Time, comprised of a large sand mountain crowned by half a clock, wants, to quote the artist, “to refer not only to the time we waste in the world, for instance with war, but the time we personally spend doing thinks we do not like.” 
IVONNE PINI