Lilian Gassen

Language

(…) This treatment of the surface that makes this game of different paintings (the same painting seems to be many), also happens as this painting does not come to us as a basically frontal painting, as it is somehow, one characteristic of the language of painting. It, for having all this information loaded there, both the drawing full of movement, the quantity of colors coexisting and thought for this coexistence, [and] this differentiated treatment of the surface… you have the frontal view, but you also have oblique views, which are as interesting as the frontal one. That almost turns the painting into a sculpture which you could see the many different sides, but no, it keeps on being a painting that you don’t need to see just from the front (…).

In: Interview conceded to Programa Atelier published on 05/05/2014. (Programa Atelier n 139 Pt 02)

Process

(…) The surface of paint applied on the canvas, it varies a bit, but it is always around five millimeters thick of paint over the canvas. This thickness is applied in three layers. The first layer is just to check if the color is the ideal one for that situation, for that relation of contrasts side by side, and optical contrasts – when you move away from the painting. And after that, then, there come other two layers of paint. The second one, puts a lot of matter, lots of quantity of paint. And after, this one [third layer] that will define this treatment of the surface (…).

In: Interview conceded to Programa Atelier published on 05/05/2014. (Programa Atelier n 139 Pt 02)

Color

(…) So, if the color “is usually” not, but “currently is”, we understand that it has in art a relative and temporary condition. It has a relative condition because color is totally dependent on its adjacencies. And, it has a temporary condition because it is subordinate to luminosity states. Therefore, we can say that in equation of art, while drawing is configured as a constant¹, color is a variable². (…)

In: Imersão na cor. Exhibition text of group exhibition by Francis Rodrigues, Leila Valebona, Marise Hauser and Miriam Fischer in Curitiba, in 2011.

Exhibition

Someone could say belvedere is a singular place where one goes when one wants to enjoy a vast panorama. But, from the position where I put myself, Belvedere is a proposal of a privileged situation, in which observer and what is observed are interlinked, both inscribed in some space/time apprehensible through the idea of deliberate shift, first of the bodies, then of the eye, or both simultaneously.

In this situation, the observer is the active subject who can occupy several different positions in space relative to one or several reference points outside themselves throughout time. There is not in Belvedere one correct position to observe, nor that perspective point for a totalizing and unified view. In the situation provoked by Belvedere the observer moves, the eye is scanning and the horizon is other in each of these shifts.

In: Belvedere. Text of Lilian Gassen’s solo exhibition, in Curitiba, in 2009.

Art

Art is a problem to be solved logically, but without solution. The lack of conclusion of the problem does not mean that art does not lead anywhere, but rather, it gets to countless provisional places. Through this transience, we can visualize several characteristics of the problem, such as:

1. it only exists inside time;
2. during its development, the occurrences change places and directions;
3. so, it also depends on space. (…)      

In: Observatório. Texto da exposição individual de Lilian Gassen, em Curitiba, em 2004.

Language

Painting is one thing that can have a coating of one or more surfaces with matter. This thing can be anything, canvas with or without a frame, wood, metal, paper, concrete, chair, plastic, cheese, a person, wall, stone, leather, glass, and etc. The coating may not exist, giving place to the characteristic of the surface, or it can be made in innumerable ways, depending, sometimes, on the characteristics of the matter used. It can simply cover the surface, or part of it, in a homogeneous way or not, using recognizable and unrecognizable images, with or without organic, inorganic and geometric shapes, it can also conform to patterns such as meshes and molds, or application techniques like stencil, and occupation techniques. The surfaces are of the thing, therefore they will conform to the characteristics of this thing such as, regularity, shape, size and texture, unless alterations are made. At last, the matter can be anything, paint, pencil, oil, chocolate, spike, resin, metal, cement, stickers, paper, acid, makeup, fabric, powder, light, coconut, glitter, people, glass, wood… A good painting, maybe, is a result of the perfect sum of these elements, not like 2 + 2 = 4, because sometimes what is more logical is also plainer.

In: Pintura Desenho Objeto Fotografia. Exhibition text of   Outro ponto de vista group exhibition by Claudia Costa Claudia Washington, C.L. Salvaro, Lívia Piantavini, Lúcio Henrique Araújo, Otávio Roesner, Tatiana Stropp, Tony Camargo and William Machado, in Curitiba; may 27, 2004.

Language

Drawing is one thing that contains a vestige of an attitude on a place. Just like the painting, this thing could be anything, the planet for example. This vestige exists by the addition or removal of matter, as it is when dirt is added to a road for it to be made up, or when Moses parts the waters of the Red Sea for having a path. The attitude can be of infinite natures, yet it will always be submitted to time and space. It may be exercised by the artist themselves or not, through movements that can start from one or more parts of the body, or from the whole body, or even from innumerable people at the same time. It can be completely independent of the artist’s will, or conform to parameters that come from the thing or from the artist. Now, concerning the place, besides the possibility of being just a surface, it may be the space, the sky, the Atlantic Ocean, everything in the end or endlessly. A good drawing comes into existence when and where it is no longer exclusively limit, boundary, circumscription. When, apart from constructing its own boundary, because it is inevitable, it also constructs exchanging devices.

In: Pintura Desenho Objeto Fotografia. Exhibition text of Outro ponto de vista group exhibition by Claudia Costa Claudia Washington, C.L. Salvaro, Lívia Piantavini, Lúcio Henrique Araújo, Otávio Roesner, Tatiana Stropp, Tony Camargo and William Machado, in Curitiba; may 27, 2004.

Art

(…) It is the situation in which these materials are that establishes the relation between them and gives meaning to the whole, and not a difference or an equivalence, or yet a pregiven order.  It is as though sphere, oil and plumb line could never be united if not by the situation (state, condition in which someone or something finds themselves).

In: Definição, 2nd version (05/28/2002). Text of Lívia Piantavini's solo exhibition, in 2002.

Art

(…) Now, it is the material difference (physical constitution, shape, function and iconographic characteristics) between each of these parts that establishes the relation between them and gives meaning to the whole, because it is in the difference that each part reaffirms itself as a part reacting to what it is not, delimiting its territory and its function in the work.

In: Definição, 1st version (05/07/2002). Text of Lívia Piantavini's solo exhibition, in 2002.

Process

(…) Before doing a work I spend a lot of time studying the idea of it, I analyze if there are not too many elements, I make a project, so I observe a lot, I keep studying each detail. I try to make several readings to see if there are not elements that guide to readings which do not interest me. The readers are different. The reader is subjective. (…)

In: Declaração. Extracted text from graduation final paper Lilian Gassen: conceitos e trabalhos, in Curitiba, in 2000.

Language

Observações sobre [parte]

Aslinhasquecortam,quemarcam,

aslinhasqueacariciamteucontorno,

asmesmaslinhasqueteimpedemdesertudo,

estaslinhas,divisasquemesmoassimtefazemtodo,

tododelinhas, cortado, todo dividido.

P               a                r               t               e.

In: Poema extraído do diário de criação de Lilian Gassen, 1998.