Alexandra Poleo Painter

 

Alexandra Poleo's drawings take us to the invisible levels of the subconscious. Her complex and hybrid figures resemble multi formic and anthropomorphic entities charged with infinite evocations of humans and animals. Poleo recreates wonders and sortileges from her prolific imaginary, giving birth to a gallery of magical beings. They conform a sort of characters with personality, pose, psychology, and emotion, leading the imagination to a theatrical set up in which they relate and interact.”Milagros Bello, Ph.D.Curator of the showMoonlight Zoo is the culmination of a reflective body of work that spans many years, beginning in 2007. Figuration is the artistic culture in which Alexandra Poleo was educated. What is said and what is understood beforehand in each piece is like a first language – such as an animal that looks like a dog, in the form of what looks like a tree. She has never been interested in faithful reproductions of reality, nor in making the figure a part of an ideology against society, against war, against politics. There is no militancy in the artist’s paintings, only the evocation of her universe – the re-creation of a world that isn’t the world of her friends, or her neighbors, or acquaintances. It’s a parallel world, like the parallel world of Lewis Carroll, except in place of Alice it is Poleo who falls through the looking glass. Her world is ironic.The title helps find a level of comprehension within the work. It’s almost as important as the work itself. “I love coming up with titles, but I don’t ask for the viewer to share my vision by interpreting them as I do. The viewer re-creates his or her own evocative universe in these works. The viewer creates his or her own puzzle in which to understand my world,” the artist states. Moonlight Zoois a midnight fauna of fantasy and humor. Monkey Business is not a gorilla but a projection of her unconscious. The animals are internal images, not real animals that you come upon at the corner of your block. The animals are part of her world. There are also elements in the artist’s work that may form part of the vegetative, botanical, and mineral worlds.Alexandra Poleo´s second language is abstraction – which is whatever it suggests. A tubular form can at once be a tunnel, a staircase, a column, or it can be many other things. She has always been interested in the deconstruction of the figure. What appears first (the figure) looks like an animal but can also be interpreted as an abstract form with a certain lyrical force.In the 1980s and ‘90s the artist’s work tended more towards figuration, where one could recognize the figures. Her struggle as of now is how to hide the figure, and make it harder to find. What she would like to achieve most is to find a harmony between colors and masses within each work. The equilibrium of the work is the most important, as a balancing act.Poleo loves making work on paper and wood. There is the same liberty on paper that there is in a soundtrack or in a short story. For the artist there is no difference in quality between work on paper and work on canvas. “There is great nobility in paper. A work on paper is intimate – one seems to find the world in it. When I use collage in my work, I use my own collaged images. I take parts of other works that might have been discarded and incorporate them into new work, or rework what I have by adding new elements and reintegrating materials both new and old. It’s as if each piece is a puzzle that integrates and re-integrates elements” says the artist.She uses different media – oil on paper or wood, oil sticks. With them, she creates elements that give the illusion of a graphic gesture. For example, a scribble in the air made with a certain freedom. She likes Chinese paintbrushes that can work different ways with tints or acrylics. .“Alexandra Poleo's drawings take us to the invisible levels of the subconscious. Her complex and hybrid figures resemble multi  formic and  anthropomorphic entities charged with infinite evocations of humans and animals.

 

 

Poleo recreates wonders and sortileges from her prolific imaginary, giving birth to a gallery of magical beings. They conform a sort of characters with personality, pose, psychology, and emotion, leading the imagination to a theatrical set up in which they relate and interact.”Milagros Bello, Ph.D.Curator of the showMoonlight Zoo is the culmination of a reflective body of work that spans many years, beginning in 2007. Figuration is the artistic culture in which Alexandra Poleo was educated. What is said and what is understood beforehand in each piece is like a first language – such as an animal that looks like a dog, in the form of what looks like a tree. She has never been interested in faithful reproductions of reality, nor in making the figure a part of an ideology against society, against war, against politics. There is no militancy in the artist’s paintings, only the evocation of her universe – the re-creation of a world that isn’t the world of her friends, or her neighbors, or acquaintances. It’s a parallel world, like the parallel world of Lewis Carroll, except in place of Alice it is Poleo who falls through the looking glass. Her world is ironic.The title helps find a level of comprehension within the work. It’s almost as important as the work itself. “I love coming up with titles, but I don’t ask for the viewer to share my vision by interpreting them as I do. The viewer re-creates his or her own evocative universe in these works. The viewer creates his or her own puzzle in which to understand my world,” the artist states. Moonlight Zoois a midnight fauna of fantasy and humor. Monkey Business is not a gorilla but a projection of her unconscious. The animals are internal images, not real animals that you come upon at the corner of your block. The animals are part of her world. There are also elements in the artist’s work that may form part of the vegetative, botanical, and mineral worlds.Alexandra Poleo´s second language is abstraction – which is whatever it suggests. A tubular form can at once be a tunnel, a staircase, a column, or it can be many other things. She has always been interested in the deconstruction of the figure. What appears first (the figure) looks like an animal but can also be interpreted as an abstract form with a certain lyrical force.In the 1980s and ‘90s the artist’s work tended more towards figuration, where one could recognize the figures. Her struggle as of now is how to hide the figure, and make it harder to find. What she would like to achieve most is to find a harmony between colors and masses within each work. The equilibrium of the work is the most important, as a balancing act.Poleo loves making work on paper and wood. There is the same liberty on paper that there is in a soundtrack or in a short story. For the artist there is no difference in quality between work on paper and work on canvas. “There is great nobility in paper. A work on paper is intimate – one seems to find the world in it. When I use collage in my work, I use my own collaged images. I take parts of other works that might have been discarded and incorporate them into new work, or rework what I have by adding new elements and reintegrating materials both new and old. It’s as if each piece is a puzzle that integrates and re-integrates elements” says the artist.She uses different media – oil on paper or wood, oil sticks. With them, she creates elements that give the illusion of a graphic gesture. For example, a scribble in the air made with a certain freedom. She likes Chinese paintbrushes that can work different ways with tints or acrylics. .

Milafros Bello Curator.