Dali and Leonora Carrington: Too Surreal
Everyone knows about the melting clock turning your child's mind upside down with a solid object reimagined as a liquid. Wow. What other things in life can I start questioning? I remember being slightly averse but also intrigued by the illogical images. I thought by staring long enough I might be able to make sense of it. Surrealism has a new life, or never really died, with Photoshop and disjointed collages being an easier point of entry instead of paints. I've always enjoyed objects, especially art, that defy convention and make me think. It can be weird, wonderful and spectacular as long as it is original and not boring.
I stumbled upon the artist Leonora Carrington through a Lenny Letter article focusing on her lasting impact as an artist and two female artists, one in an additional article below, wanting to pay homage to her work with a pilgrimage to her home in Mexico. They visited with her shortly before her death while finishing their creative excursion.
Why have I never heard of this female artist who is as prolific, working and creating for almost 70 years, than Dali who is essentially a household name? Two factors which won't surprise anyone is creating while female and also in Mexico. So which college class would I need to have taken to learn about her? Probably a very niche art history class only open to art history majors which I never was.
As an amateur art enthusiast, I resist learning about art and artists I'm not intrigued by. I own a Dali calendar which I couldn't throw away after the year was over. I was sure this calendar could be repurposed with the images, hanging or tacking them to the walls, or framing to seem like a person with a very well put together life. They remain in my closet with other calendars waiting for their day in the sun or on the walls. I didn't get a chance to visit the Meadows Museum yet which has a new Dali exhibit through the beginning of November. I've seen plenty of Dali's work to understand his style differs from Leonora’s.
The differences between Salvador Dali and Leonora Carrington are numerous in style, color, texture and shading but both are intriguing to the eye. They both stay firmly under the umbrella of surrealism where only the highly illogical makes any kind of sense. The battle royale of surrealism should be who creates the strangest and most intriguing new art.
The Paris Review featured an endlessly quotable piece by Heidi Sopinka so I urge you to just read it and I will resist from half this post consisting of those very quotes. They are marvelous. The author was intrigued by the Leonora Carrington, obviously, and her proximity and knowledge of death. What can I learn from the 92 year old woman who can inform the fictional 92 year old woman I'm writing about? I find The Paris Review sometimes revelatory and sometimes incomprehensible, in a bad way, and the writing for this piece is the former. It will make you want to take a pilgrimage to visit an ailing female creator and master of her craft before she leaves our realm.
For a real deep dive into Dali’s partner, Gala, and all the strange and unusual goings on swirling around them this piece should provide a couple of self conscious chuckles over her description as having, "the libido of an electric eel" among countless others. I liked this phrase so much I had to create some content in its honor.
