I visited Lionel Smit's Faces Exhibition (8.9.16-29.1.17) last week. I didn't know almost anything about Lionel Smit before the visit. Besides paintings and sculptures there was a video telling about his life.
Lionel Smit was born in 1982 in Pretoria, South Africa. He spend a lot of time in his father's (sculptor Anton S.) studio which was located next to the family home. This studio played a central role in Lionel's upbringing. At 12 years age he was working in clay and considered himself primarily as a sculptor. At 16 his parents separated and after that he began to use the empty studio space for painting.
For this reason he is painting mostly African faces. The paintings are both figurative and abstract. He was now first time in Finland and the paintings were made for this exhibition. He uses very beautiful African colors and now as new also gold.
When I left the museum it was dark outside and there was a beautiful view to see: Behind the turquoise pool through the large windows you could see the paintings and in every painting more or less the same turquoise color.
The Didrichsen Art Museum is always nice to visit, because I like it's homey environment.
Leena 1,
Thanks for your post, Leena. I missed it! Well, my own fault, it was there for 5 months. Sounds great though.
ReplyDeleteI saw the exhibition few months ago and agree Leena's review of the exhibition and the museum itself.
ReplyDeleteBR
Sirpa