{"id":5,"date":"2013-06-03T11:23:01","date_gmt":"2013-06-03T11:23:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alanleon.org\/artist\/?page_id=5"},"modified":"2013-06-05T02:45:18","modified_gmt":"2013-06-05T02:45:18","slug":"artist-statement","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.alanleon.org\/artist\/artist-statement\/","title":{"rendered":"Artist Statement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"6\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.alanleon.org\/artist\/artist-statement\/statementimage\/#main\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.alanleon.org\/artist\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/statementimage.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"73,131\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-title=\"statementimage\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.alanleon.org\/artist\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/statementimage.jpg\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-6\" style=\"border: 3px solid black; margin: 5px;\" alt=\"statementimage\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alanleon.org\/artist\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/statementimage.jpg\" width=\"73\" height=\"131\" \/>Art is about redeeming the mundane and ordinary &#8211; transforming into the sacred, sometimes universal, so we can study and unfold &#8211; gain joy, power and direction.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_50\" style=\"width: 209px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-50\" data-attachment-id=\"50\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.alanleon.org\/artist\/temescal-flows-mural\/eoak0630creativity\/#main\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.alanleon.org\/artist\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Temescal-15.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"479,720\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-title=\"eoak0630creativity\" data-image-description=\"&lt;p&gt;Writer and director Judith Offer partnered with muralist Alan Leon to paint the overpass on 52nd street near Shattuck Alameda, Calif. on Friday, June 24, 2011. (Michael Conti\/Staff)&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.alanleon.org\/artist\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Temescal-15.jpg\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-50\" style=\"border: 2px solid black; margin: 3px;\" alt=\"eoak0630creativity\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alanleon.org\/artist\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Temescal-15-199x300.jpg\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.alanleon.org\/artist\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Temescal-15-199x300.jpg 199w, https:\/\/www.alanleon.org\/artist\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Temescal-15.jpg 479w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-50\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alan Leon<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I will always be passionate about making form and combining colors. I feel I am doing my greatest good when involved in these activities. The visual and tactile sense of dragging a brush over canvas filled with luscious color is a simple yet courageous daily act for me. It is a way to dialog with myself; to see what is inside and to see how to bring the world in. When I work I feel like I am engaging the root meaning of the word art \u2013 to join \u2013 to fit disparate elements together- to include.<\/p>\n<p>Cezanne talked of art as a priesthood demanding that the pure in heart belong to it <strong>ENTIRELY<\/strong>. Hundertwasser, an early mentor of mine, talked of seeing how brown was the farmer\u2019s earth and how green the plants and knew he had to become a painter.<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\">I feel similarly inspired that painting is a window for spiritual growth, an infinite teacher and a prime source to know the sheer delight of process and resultant.<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\">My central life issue\/theme over the past 25 years has been to create art directly sparked from the landscape as a way of giving greater voice to the immense beauty and meaning of the surface of the earth. I have traveled widely and delight in landscape inspiring &amp; micro-affecting my work.<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\">Landscape has several connotations:<br \/>\n\u2022 The idea of the genius of place as a set of unique topographical &amp; vegitational elements<br \/>\n\u2022 Landscape as food, joy and sustenance<br \/>\n\u2022 Landscape as stored memory, energy and inherent importance<br \/>\n\u2022 Landscape as piles of cosmic dust that are elevated and depressed with the tides, planets and earth processes<br \/>\n\u2022 Landscape as an expression of the vitality of existence<br \/>\n\u2022 Landscape as a representation of an organic growth system, color subtlety and excitement<br \/>\n\u2022 Landscape images as a way to draw attention to conversation and destruction of habitat issues<br \/>\n\u2022 Landscape as beauty and source (i.e. the taut, muscularity of close-cropped, green grass folding hills)<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\">What excites me about focusing on composing segments of the earth\u2019s surface (landscape painting) is that any image created is a meditation on place and the factors that have caused it. I want the viewer to see the magic and possibility of imagined and representational landscapes and be able to reframe the landscape and think about it from multiple perspectives.<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\">The immediacy and freshness of watercolor, my primary medium, serves to help document and record in an almost journalistic fashion.<br \/>\nThere is also a reverence similar to the Aborigine idea of the landscape would \u201cuncreate\u201d itself if left unpainted by humans.<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\">Panoramic format is used as an analog to our laterally positioned eyes. Much of my work is<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"7\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.alanleon.org\/artist\/artist-statement\/statementyoga\/#main\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.alanleon.org\/artist\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/statementyoga.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"150,100\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-title=\"statementyoga\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.alanleon.org\/artist\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/statementyoga.jpg\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-7\" style=\"line-height: 24px; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify; margin: 8px; border: 2px solid black;\" alt=\"statementyoga\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alanleon.org\/artist\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/statementyoga.jpg\" width=\"150\" height=\"100\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\">\u00a0done on the spot, plein-air to convey a bit of the perceived truth of that particular moment. I follow in the tradition of artist-explorers like Rubens, Church, Homer, Turner, Freidrich, Dali and Gauguin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Art is about redeeming the mundane and ordinary &#8211; transforming into the sacred, sometimes universal, so we can study and unfold &#8211; gain joy, power and direction. I will always be passionate about making form and combining colors. I feel I am doing my greatest good when involved in these activities. The visual and tactile [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":20,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P3BGvy-5","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanleon.org\/artist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanleon.org\/artist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanleon.org\/artist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanleon.org\/artist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanleon.org\/artist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanleon.org\/artist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":478,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanleon.org\/artist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5\/revisions\/478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanleon.org\/artist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}