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| The paintings of Adela Leibowitz look like haunted turn-of-the-century Viennese dreamscapes. They are as lovely and as dark as traditional European fairy tales. Her pretty little girls are alone in the woods. It is twilight, and darkness fast approaches. The paintings resonate with an ominous Gothic tone. Something bad has happened, or will very soon. There are no grown-ups around to shield the girls from whatever danger may lurk. But, although their situation may be vulnerable, they are not afraid. Leibowitz’s nuanced rendering of expression and pose infuses her girl children instead with a strong and complicated intelligence that verges on the malevolent. Despite their sweet baby-fat gentility and the nicety of their schoolgirl frocks, they feel deeply in touch with an innate lust for cruelty. The little lambs prostrate at the feet of one little miss may be sleeping or dead. We don’t know. And she’s not telling. It is a secret she treasures. In another canvas, seated twins exchange a knowing look, and one fears for the well-being of the bunny that scampers in the distance. One is reminded of the wicked peeps in the 1960 horror classic Village of the Damned, which along with other films from the genre is a prime inspiration for Leibowitz. In the service of suspense, she fleshes out the volumes of her little bodies and heads in the muted blue shadows of encroaching night, while the details of the surrounding forest are lost in the flattening, almost lyrical B-film bleaches of the departing sun. Our eyes cannot see the menacing lurker Leibowitz teases us to imagine. Perhaps there is none. Perched on the ground beside one little girl is a crow, emblem of death. Something just outside the frame holds them both transfixed in dark wonder. But that child of such immense personality will not give it away. The privacy of her black communion is sacred to her. Jack the Pelican introduced Adela Leibowitz last year in our exhibition New Lawn. After that, she had a one-person show at OK Harris in New York. She was in the 5 Artists show at Artist’s Space, curated by Kim Foster, and another group show at DFN Gallery (with Mark Ryden and Loretta Lux). She is the 2002/3 recipient of the P.S. 122 Residency and a grant from the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation Grant. |
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