Leonardo Silaghi
Seemingly abandoned factories and obsolete machinery have always been pivotal themes in Leonardo Silaghi’s paintings. His complex canvases depict industrial and visceral backgrounds in grey that are interspersed with jubilant sweeps of colour. His latest work has moved away from the immediacy of figurative into more abstract renderings, preserving the feeling of dense metallic structures and industrial remains, though not depicted in a figurative manner. Observing and photographing the omnipresence of structures, devices or tools in his environment, Silaghi explores the correlation of objects and illusion of space, as well as the boundaries of paint as a medium.
Galerie Kornfeld is pleased to announce Leonardo Silaghi’s second solo exhibition at the gallery. Following a three-month residency in Berlin, Leonardo Silaghi presents a series of new paintings produced in Berlin and New York City.
Seemingly abandoned factories and obsolete machinery have always been pivotal themes in Leonardo Silaghi’s paintings. His complex canvases depict industrial and visceral backgrounds in grey, interspersed with jubilant sweeps of colour. His latest work has moved away from the immediacy of figuration toward more abstract renderings, while preserving the sense of dense metallic structures and industrial remnants, though no longer depicted in a literal manner.
By observing and photographing the omnipresence of structures, devices and tools in his environment, Silaghi explores the relationship between object and space, as well as the boundaries of paint as a medium.
His painting process is physical and arduous. He begins with large areas of colour flowing across the canvas in streaks, later covering most of these planes with different shades of grey. Colour, it seems, is too easy and too pleasing for this ambitious young artist, who sets himself nearly impossible challenges within the confines of his large-scale canvases. Exercises such as painting geometric forms with the fewest possible lines, creating spatial depth without shadows, or generating three-dimensionality without depicting objects result in compelling architectural compositions that allow viewers to enter Silaghi’s simultaneously abstract and familiar spaces.
The tension between thick, heavy layers of paint and thin, washed-out veils lends the works a pronounced tactile and sensitive quality.
Now living and working in New York City, Leonardo Silaghi (*1987) graduated from the University of Art and Design in Cluj, Romania, in 2010. His work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including at the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art (USA), Marc Straus Gallery (New York), Galerie Kornfeld (Berlin), Mucsarnok Kunsthalle (Budapest), and the Knoxville Museum of Art (USA).
Silaghi’s work has been featured in publications such as Revista Arta (Romania), The New York Times (USA), Art in America (USA), Der Tagesspiegel (Germany), Chronogram (USA), and various exhibition catalogues. His works are held in prominent private and public collections.