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LEoN oKS
Lives and works in Buffalo grove, IL USA
www.leonoksart.com
Denying access to it is the quickest torn by war, and having to deal with the
way to enslave a person, and the artist role of the man too early in life, but also
is a free spirit by nature. It was also through the eyes of the adult who remi-
a lesson about life and relationships, nisces about the difficult times and in
about the solitude and relentlessness the same time manages to filter these
of the creator: believing in himself was experiences and to re-connect again
always what gave him the strength to and again to the beauty of a life and a
pursue his gift, and what enabled him landscape, without and hard feelings.
to share it with others, then and today. The reverence for nature and the
landscape where he grew up, which is
Just like Chagall created his mythical a recurrent theme in his paintings, is in
village, which remains in the history competition only with his deep admira-
of art as the space where the laws of tion for women. The female figure is
reality are suspended so that a new another one of his ubiquitous subjects,
reality, seen through different eyes, and it is not a particular woman, but
can take shape in its own rights, so Oks the concept of womanhood itself and
re-creates for all of us to experience his the underlying connection between
childhood town in an incredible series the female symbolism and nature, the
of dreamy paintings, whose quiet charm primordial rhythms of life, that is in the
will never cease to fascinate us. “My focus of the artist, in paintings such as
Childhood Memories” is a gift that the ‘Sunset Dance’, ‘Sound of Silence’, or
artist selflessly shares with everyone, ‘Orchard’.
by offering us the opportunity to expe-
rience something we’ll never be able known for his preference to work with
to forget. models, Oks represents the female not
It is a fascinating experience to see as a subject, but more as a primordial
how this universe, depicted in paintings energy, who is also a catalyst for his art,
such as ‘Path to My Childhood Town’, about which we sometimes read resplendent in a beauty that transcends boundaries. The representation
in history books, can be seen simultaneously both through the eyes of of the female form is a nexus of flowing lines and swirling color, who
the child who had to deal with the harsh realities of life, with moving only serves to emphasize the fact that She is at the center of creation,
from one place to another in an attempt to find a place in a country and essential to our survival as a species.
MoRNINg hARMoNy, 2011 OIL ON CANvAS 30X24 IN. /76X61 CM.
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