Born in 1974, Leslie Sardinias graduated from the National School of Fine Arts in Havana (1994), and from Parsons The New School for Design in New York (2000) with a Master’s degree in Design and Animation. After living in Europe for several years, Sardinias returned to New York, where he continues his investigative work in painting, animation, and design. He has participated extensively in both solo and group exhibitions, among the most notable being the VII Florence Biennial in 2001, where he received the Lorenzo de Medici Award. In 2012, Sardinias’ animated video Watching You was displayed on billboards in New York’s Times Square. The artist has been exhibited solo Aguas Malas his project focusing on painting and drawing at the 8TH Floor Museum in New York and most recently, La Comunidad at El Museo de Arte Colonial in Havana, Cuba, on the occasion of the 2015 Havana Biennial. His works are part of numerous important collections internationally, including the Spanish Royal Collection, the Alex Rosenberg Private Collection, and the collection of the Arte Viva Foundation. His work has been exhibited at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana, Cuba; the Angel Museum in Segovia, Spain; the Casa Lamm Collection in Mexico City, Mexico; the Deposito Bagagli Musei Vaticani in Rome, Italy; and the Shelley and Donald Rubin Private Collection
Compass Locator
September, 1, 2013
For Immediate Release
Frances Reynolds is proud to present new works by Leslie Sardinias during his residency in Rio de Janeiro at Instituto Inclusartiz. The series “Compass locator” discusses the pursuit of a goal, and how the search is frequently more important than the result. When in searching we focus on the result, we often ignore what is already around us. Sardinias employs different materials in many layers to give richness to the works. The layering mimics the structure of human memory, the fragility of which leads to forgetting, to deleting the unnecessary, to the reduction to the minimal and the concrete. In this sense, they represent the end of the memory forming process, in which you can see only fragments of the original within the final result.
In this series, the target is surrounded by a universe composed of maps, places, things, people, and emotions. These points form a cosmos of possible world, where you can abstractly obtain what you want, but never the intended, specific result. Consequently, the titles are only reference points to the quest: “Compass locator, Rio do Janeiro,” or “Compass locator, sad days.” The construction of the works is structured with an astrolabe, a tool historically employed by astronomers and sailors, as well as with laser compasses, like those used in modern marine settings. These compositions are heavily informed by the symbolic meanings of the primary colors, with hue deriving from both emotion and location. Sadness is conveyed in blue tones, while Rio de Janeiro is represented by green, blue, and yellow. Color amplifies the emotion of the message. The organic forms of the works are influenced by Paul Klee and Malevich; musicians Shostakovich, Philip Glass, Camille Saint-Sans, and Sigur Ros; designer Isamu Noguchi; architects Zaha Hadid and Calatrava; and dancer Martha Graham.
Leslie Sardinias was born in Havana, Cuba in 1977 and was raised in Madrid. He received his MA in 2000 in Design and Animationfrom Parsons School of Art in New York where he currently lives and works. He received his BFA from the National Academy of Plastic Arts in Havana,
Cuba. He has exhibited at the Times Square Alliance during Frieze NY 2012, and Palacio del Conde de Lombillo and Galeria Origenes during the Havana Biennal in 2006 in addition to showing in galleries internationally. His work is in the following collections: the Fundacion ArtNexus, Casa Lamm, Museo de las Americas in Puerto Rico, the Opus Havana Collection and ArteViva Foundation among others. His work will be available at Johannes Vogt Gallery at Booth E7 during Art Rio 2013.
For further details and/or to schedule studio visits please contact:
Maria Garcia-Luben Iban Mariaglubeni@gmail.com or Adriana Farietta @adriana@adrianafarietta.com
