LilianaPerez.com

What I see is restless energy. I hunt for images that resonate deep inside me.

Back in Cuba 2,

24 x 24, Acrylic on Canvas. 14, 2015

This painting comes from a real experience, turn to dream.


When I was five years in Havana, Cuba, my mother reupholster our sofa with the American flag. It was illegal to own, let alone display an American flag.  It was her way of demonstrating her dissatisfaction with the current regime. Her display of anger spread, folks came to inquirie about the sofa.  I recall strangers, standing at our door, looking at the sofa with shock and awe.  They smiled, ask question and validate my mothers action.

  

Years later, the image of the sofa came to me, in a dream. I painted it, the dream went away, to  return again and again. My last painted version in 20xx, was painted with an intention of working from observation towards a “realism”’, getting the flag accurate, the flag on the studio sofa, no photographs. Once again an object in space, the objected being painted is the catalyst to what lyes deep inside.  

Untitlted Landscape

16 x16, Acrylic on Canvas, January 2017


In our backyard there is a big park, open to the public.  Its oval in shape, less than a mile once around.  The space is open in the middle, a few trees, a contrast to what is contained in the edges.  A deep forest, a stream of water resides in the edges of the park.  The sky is often very dramatic.  I painted this from observation, then back at home, worked on it some more. 


Oleg Waits

36 x 42, 2004, Oil on Canvas, 2004

Oleg Waits, oil on canvas, painting came to be from reading, Hemingway’s' short story The Killers.  It's the same story that Hopper to create Nighthawks.  It was during a visit to the Art Institute of Chicago, that a running a tour, spoke about the Hopper’s painting.  I drew , hired a model and painted Oleg, a boxer, waiting in his room, waiting to be caught. The image of Nighthawk is of the diner, that was expecting him.  

Bowery Gallery, NYC, NY

Dog series. Oil Pastels on paper, 2013

The dog series came at a time of changes, a time where drawing the dogs released the tension nipping at my heel.


While at The Musée Condé in Chantilly, France, I saw painting of dogs hunting, of animal fighting and drew from them, years later those image stay with me.  I pulled from that tension, 

Iron Fish Gallery, Beacon, NY

She is Pulled, Acrylic on Paper, 46 x 68, 2008

This series hit me hard.  I became enthralled with Nicolas Poussin, 1594-1665.  I walked into the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC, NY, turned to the right, at the top of the stairs, there it was. Nicolas Poussins' The Abduction of the Sabine Women, 1633-34, oil on canvas, .  I was so moved by this painting. I seek other paintings by him.  Le Massacre de la Innocents, 1625-29,  dug a dagger in me.


I responded with drawings, paintings and sculptures. I took the side of the mother loosing her child, the woman running away with a dead child on her arm, imagined being in the painting from an aerial view.  This painting is very haunting.  It me to the large works on paper, She is Pulled and Arcadia. 

Rome Art Program

January 25, 2025

I sat inside the Protestant Cemetery in Rome, Italy, away from the street, enwrapped between the stones.  Looking around, letting the feelings over take the lines and color choice. I couldn’t draw fast enough, being engulfed in this beautiful cemetery.

Obersavation and Immagination

Traveling is challenging, making work on the road is a great way to awaken the senses. 

When working on site, I have a choice, to work without knowing any of the historical facts of what I'm looking at, or be informed and read up on the history of the location, only to influence the  and/or drawing..  


In Rome, while working at the Ponte Sant’Angelo, a Gypsie sat in the middle of the composition I was looking at.  I placed her in the .  It’s a fact, when working from observation in air, anything can happen.  

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Experience and Imagination

Ponte Sant'Angelo,
Rome, Italy

Dirt, dirt, dirt, washed my feet, as soon as I got into the apartment. After a while I felt as if my feet were transformed into sponges, gathering the souls of those who walked the cobbled streets, before me. 


Taking long walks in Trestevere, Italy,  looking for images to pop out between the buildings.  The strangest feelings would come over me, looking at objects/architecture, reminding me, what it is to be human and physically present on this earth.  As I sat to draw, the earth beckoned me to draw that spirit, ?  What was I really painting?


One more building, that tells a story, one more piazza to gather with strangers and loved one, another bridge displaying ornate sculptures, a gypsy stops to sit in front of me, the inhabitants, corralled by history.  They welcome the past, could it be because the building’s or piazza’s are impregnated with the seven deadly sins, lust, pride, wrath.  Where to look?   Everywhere. Where do you stop?  You don’t!


Rome it’s where women drive scooter with three inch heels and where green and , move across the surface of a landscape.


There is a strange magic in Rome, violent, feminine and masculine as if the sculptures were pulled from the ground up. The light is crisp, as it chisel’s the marble.  There is a heaviness in the air and yes  Alora, is the catch all phrase. Walking up the incline, between  Piazza Spagna and Piazza del Popolo, stopped to draw with watercolor, imagining Poussin strolling down the lane, he stopped to talk to me.  My mind conjured up, us meeting.


There was only one day I couldn’t draw, standing, looking at the dungeons and animal cages inside the base of the Colosseum.   I went outside and did a watercolor. 

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Magical,  teasing my senses, redistributing my scale of narrative, this I found in abundance, in Rome, Italy

Drawing the Human Soul

Portaits

The Violence we live with

Human Skull, 42 x 36, Graphite, Acrylic on Paper, 2016

Robert, 20 x 22, Oil on Canvas, 2006

They are there, 8 x 10, 2008

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Bio

Born in Havana, Cuba 

While in Cuba, at age six I made a drawing of a car, from our family’s second floor apartment in Central Havana, I showed the drawing to my father and uncle.  My uncle proceeded to show me how a car ought to be drawn. It was then and there that I realized that his symbolic interpretation of a car, simplification of forms was not what a car looks like, but one invented, without looking.  Besides’ that is not how I see it.  I told myself to never make a drawing from general information.  I returned to the balcony, sat down with the most earnest intention to draw what I saw.  


That experience this day to hunt for what is unique in what I see For me to see is not enough, but to look is much more daring.  As I work from observation I see volume in space as real as the leaf itself.  I find the experience of working from life full of tension and not knowing the final outcome, specific to that moment in time, each painting and drawing is different, such as each moment is different in . 


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CV

My work takes place in the exploration of traditional and non traditional practices in painting/drawing. The forms evolve from the perception of restless energy that is all around us.  Listening, taunts a physical and intellectual run, elevating my skills, to attain and design new practices.  

It’s a daunting task being alive, to hunt for images that resonate deep inside me.

Education

New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture, NY. NY.      

MFA in Drawing and Painting, 2008


Paul University, Theatre School, Chicago, IL       

BFA in Scenic Design, 1996

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Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY Painting and Drawing,  1979-1982,  

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Rutgers University, Certificate Professional Interpreter, 201

Solo Exhibition

Devouring Innocents, New York Studio School, NY, NY 2009
What Happened with Poussin, Iron Fish Gallery Beacon, NY 2008
Look Gallery, Chicago, IL 2006
18th St. Pilsen Open Studio, Chicago, IL 2003-2005

Group Exhibiition

Invitational Small Works, Bowery Gallery, NY, NY 2013
Governors Island Art Fair, NY, NY 2011
Rogue Space Chelsea, NY, NY 2010
Tom Robinson Gallery, Chicago, IL 2010
Bowery Gallery,NY, NY 2009
A.I.R., Vallauris, France 2008
1112 Gallery, Chicago, IL 2006
Thanhardt-Burger Corporation, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 2006
American Academy of Art, Chicago, IL 2003-2006
Maryland Federation of Art, Annapolis, MD 2003
Center for the Arts at Mitzner Park, Boca Raton, FL 2003
Limner Gallery, NY, NY 2002
Drawing from Perception,Wright State University, Dayton, OH 2002
Living Art, Gallery 37 Center for the Arts, Chicago, IL 2001
Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, Chicago, IL 1999
Monmouth County Art Alliance Juried State Show, Red Bank, NJ

Harlem Studio, NYC

Thank you for your interest. For any inquiries, commission requests, please contact me.

Note: These images are the drawings/ideas I was working from for the Honenbergh Solo Exhibition at the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture, NYC, NY

Address:

30 South Main, Street, Allentown,NJ 08501

Email:

Phone:

9174210049

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