Marian Lefeld
Untitled, 2010 (from Caracas Series) 38' X 40'
The daughter of a Basque immigrant, Venezuelan born artist Marian de Lefeld (1970) relocated to the United States in 1996, shortly before Hugo Chávez seized political power in the otherwise traditionally democratic South American country.
In her yearly trips back home to Venezuela, Marian has witnessed the tragic deterioration of a once flourishing society into its current stagnant state of affairs, inappropriately called the socialist “Beautiful Revolution.” These changes in her beloved country have had a profound effect on her art.
Marian studied art at Brookhaven College before graduating magna cum laude with a BFA from Southern Methodist University. She has exhibited extensively in a series of paintings and prints she calls political landscapes. Her work has recently expanded to include sculpture.
Gallery affiliations include Ro2 Art, Dallas, Texas, Carmen Araujo Arte in Caracas, Venezuela and Maestro Gallery, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Her work will be included in the 2010 Buenos Aires Contemporary Art Fair, Argentina.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Just when I was leaving my childhood behind and becoming a teenager, I moved to the capital city of Venezuela, Caracas, from a tiny coastal town. The radical change in geography struck me in a profound way. Caracas offered me an unprecedented visual chaos, an unbearable density made of improvised architecture, which contrasted greatly with the serene seascapes of my childhood. Volatile and dangerous, the city tightly hugs its mountainous geography, made of a long valley surrounded by capricious hills; opens to spontaneous, lush vegetation ever growing within the urban landscape. Such vast spaces offer a visual respite in the city of concrete hills. The city also displays a profound social division. While certain areas are beautiful, well-kept, upscale neighborhoods, often just a precarious wall separates it from a poor area blanketed by slums where people face tremendous violence and hardship. There’s a certain vulgarity in this critical contrast; after all, Venezuela sits on the biggest oil reserve found in the western hemisphere, and the city functions like a mirror that reflect the deep polarization of my country. There is very little that I can virtually do other than address a few of these contradictions the conflict of political and social realities. My work, then, becomes a mirror of the chaotic visual and social reality of the Caracas’s landscape, which is deeply embedded within my being. Some of my work takes form in paintings on tar paper, the material and the images serve to confront the conflict that is today’s political reality in Venezuela.
But there are also other works that presuppose the notion of polarization. In those paintings and drawing, there is a different approach, a construction of a self-portrait that in some way helps recognize my own profound contradictions and ambivalence. Red was taken hostage by the revolution, I’m inviting the viewer to look at the profound rifts and polarization occurring in my native country, while attempting to confront a few realities (and memories) of chaos and conflict, both internally and externally. I keep going back home at least in my work.
In her yearly trips back home to Venezuela, Marian has witnessed the tragic deterioration of a once flourishing society into its current stagnant state of affairs, inappropriately called the socialist “Beautiful Revolution.” These changes in her beloved country have had a profound effect on her art.
Marian studied art at Brookhaven College before graduating magna cum laude with a BFA from Southern Methodist University. She has exhibited extensively in a series of paintings and prints she calls political landscapes. Her work has recently expanded to include sculpture.
Gallery affiliations include Ro2 Art, Dallas, Texas, Carmen Araujo Arte in Caracas, Venezuela and Maestro Gallery, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Her work will be included in the 2010 Buenos Aires Contemporary Art Fair, Argentina.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Just when I was leaving my childhood behind and becoming a teenager, I moved to the capital city of Venezuela, Caracas, from a tiny coastal town. The radical change in geography struck me in a profound way. Caracas offered me an unprecedented visual chaos, an unbearable density made of improvised architecture, which contrasted greatly with the serene seascapes of my childhood. Volatile and dangerous, the city tightly hugs its mountainous geography, made of a long valley surrounded by capricious hills; opens to spontaneous, lush vegetation ever growing within the urban landscape. Such vast spaces offer a visual respite in the city of concrete hills. The city also displays a profound social division. While certain areas are beautiful, well-kept, upscale neighborhoods, often just a precarious wall separates it from a poor area blanketed by slums where people face tremendous violence and hardship. There’s a certain vulgarity in this critical contrast; after all, Venezuela sits on the biggest oil reserve found in the western hemisphere, and the city functions like a mirror that reflect the deep polarization of my country. There is very little that I can virtually do other than address a few of these contradictions the conflict of political and social realities. My work, then, becomes a mirror of the chaotic visual and social reality of the Caracas’s landscape, which is deeply embedded within my being. Some of my work takes form in paintings on tar paper, the material and the images serve to confront the conflict that is today’s political reality in Venezuela.
But there are also other works that presuppose the notion of polarization. In those paintings and drawing, there is a different approach, a construction of a self-portrait that in some way helps recognize my own profound contradictions and ambivalence. Red was taken hostage by the revolution, I’m inviting the viewer to look at the profound rifts and polarization occurring in my native country, while attempting to confront a few realities (and memories) of chaos and conflict, both internally and externally. I keep going back home at least in my work.
Curriculum Vitae
TERMINAL DEGREE
RECENT ACADEMIC APPOINTMENT AND ART RELATED EXPERIENCE
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
- Master of Fine Arts in Painting, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas. Full scholarship and fellowship towards graduate school. August 2011 – May 2013
RECENT ACADEMIC APPOINTMENT AND ART RELATED EXPERIENCE
- Full-time faculty teaching Art Appreciation, Painting and Art History - Richland College, Dallas, TX, 2014 to present
- Coordinator Public Art Project, The Blood of Heroes, Richland College, November 2015
- Annual Shreveport Art Club Juried Exhibition Juror. Louisiana State Museum, Shreveport, LA, July 2015
- Adjunct Professor Studio Art, Painting – Cedar Valley College, Lancaster, TX, 2013
- Adjunct Professor Art Appreciation – TCCD South Campus, Ft Worth, TX, 2013
- Teaching Assistant, Studio Art Classes in Painting and Printmaking – Southern Methodist University, 2011-2013
- Lecture at Brookhaven College, Farmers Branch, TX. 2012
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
- Paradoja Roja, A Solo Show by Marian Lefeld, Galeria La Ventana, Caracas, Venezuela. June 2015
- The Motherload Project. http://www.themotherload.org/conversations.html. Dallas, Texas. March 2014
- Coming Home, A Solo Exhibition by Marian Lefeld. Forum Gallery, Brookhaven College. Dallas, Texas, September 2014
- Pequeño Formato. Galería La Ventana, Caracas, Venezuela. November 2014
- Ellas: Exhibiting Local Latina Artists. Latino Cultural Center, Dallas, Texas. April 2014
- A World Apart: Marian Lefeld. Hispanic Heritage Month Exhibition. Capital One Headquarters, Plano, Texas. October 2013
- Hecho en Dallas Retrospective. Latino Cultural Center, Dallas, Texas. May 2013
- Experiencing Perspectives. Mercedes Benz Financial Services, Ft Worth, Texas. May 2012 / May 2013
- Bridged – 500 Singelton, Dallas, Texas. March 2012
- Affordable Art Fair at Cultuurpark, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. October 2011
- Venezuela Inside and Out (Two-artist Exhibition) Ro2Art, Dallas, Texas. June 2010
- ArteBA, Buenos Aires Contemporary Art Fair, Argentina. May 2010
- The South. Maestro Gallery, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. May 2010
- Papel XVI, Galería Leo Blasini, Caracas, Venezuela. May 2010
- 5x7, Arthouse at the Jones Center, Austin, Texas. May 2010
- Hecho en Dallas, Latino Cultural Center, Dallas, Texas. March 2010
- Landscapes at 500X. 500X Gallery, Dallas, Texas. October 2009
- New Texas Talent. Craighead-Green Gallery, Dallas, Texas. July 2009
- Juried Show. Southern Methodist University, Gray Matters Gallery, Dallas, Texas. April 2008
- The South Press Printastic Printstacular Invitational. Carillon Gallery, Fort Worth, Texas. November 2007
- Convergence. Cerulean Gallery, Dallas, Texas. October 2006
- Outside the Lines 6. Bath House Cultural Center, Dallas, Texas. October 2006
- Rock, Paper, Scissors - Photography and Sculpture Exhibition. Manske Library Gallery, Farmers Branch, Texas. November 2005
- Dallas Center for Contemporary Art Summer Exhibition, Irving Arts Center, Irving, Texas. July 2004
- Pintura Fresca Solo Exhibition. Farmers Branch Manske Library Gallery, Farmers Branch, Texas. August 2003
- Dias de los Muertos. Bath House Cultural Center, Dallas, Texas. November 2003
- Arte Latino. African American Museum. Dallas, Texas. December 1999
