critics
Antonio Lengua's art is about the tensions of the present for the beyond, to a not too distant evolution. The forms, articulated in a lines score harmonious and incisive at the same time, in a solid balance of chromatic lights, remind of trends and authors since the ancient times up to the present and unravel a sensitivity educated to meditation. However, not even the reference to futurism appears relevant, nor convincing. The Futurists enhance the progress and represent it with strong confidence, with no limits. While on the works we focus on, the feeling of apprehension is frequently persisting. Even more frequently, quiet periods in the anguish are found for those who assist powerless to the gradual fulfillment of the events.
In these paintings, we can notice themes which evoke the surrealism, traces of the conceptual current, cubist decompositions as well as clearly legible figurative developments.
Nevertheless, in this art there is more. Lengua is only Lengua, having metabolized much more experience, not being classifiable, having with no kinship in art.
Evolved painting, therefore, pervaded by a primal inspiration, driven by instinct. In the rich production, the desire of knowing, natural to mankind, is perceived. The thought goes beyond time, back to basics or running forward to reach the end of the universe and to reply to the arcane we move in.
Here: these architectures, which, at first glance, may seem visionary and lead to the excess of the paradox, then attract our curiosity and interest. They refer to the current reality, to the cities we live in, where, next to old or ancient buildings, we see other ones, huge containers of glass or metal. They have new forms and colors. Lengua doesn't linger in the present, but makes a leap in the future, providing it with the exploration of intuition. His works speak about what is not there yet, but could happen.
Colors are now flat and uniform, now hot, later cold. The artist has his own way to play with the notes of the palette. Short vibrations correspond to large backgrounds and the compositions always space out in balance. We witness a new marriage between geometric rigor and poetry. The latter is in the landscapes of silence, lost in the sun, immersed in solitudes, in features bearing melancholy. Art, for Lengua, is a mirror of life, a representation of it. It is not only suffering, anxiety, mystery. It is also beauty and hope. So, imagination runs free in the blue sky, which - for Kandinsky- invites man to the infinite, delays on the modulation of clouds, whose white appears animated by its own light. They ignite as we stand before the paintings and we enter in their labyrinth, sensations never felt before. It is as if we had fallen into the vortex of immobility, but, together, we fly along with the wind passing by and waving a flag, a banner of the movement, which, not heard, transforms the appearances.
The meanings arise continuously from the vast silence, solemn between the columns, astral in the depths of the blue, in the unfathomable recesses of the mind. Some figures, better say stylized shapes of human beings, are hard to interpret. Reference to the ancient times is shattered, as, indeed, columns as the new realities moving forward with attractive colors, leading in the desert of loneliness. There's a face sideways, in the center of the canvas and in the center of time. It looks back to the breezy past, while facing away from the long shadow of the polymorph and so different future.
Lengua's pictorial proposal is not fully explained. This is where its strength lies, because everything is not given to understand. Some oil works are "Untitled". They portray, in general, humans or humanoids. The question is: who are they? You may feel shocked looking at them, with their unformed faces, mixed with bright colors and moved by soft shadows. Who are they? The answer may be different and refer to extra-terrestrial beings or people from the 24th Century, who lost their original identity, or could be ectoplasm of the subconscious. No explanation is exhaustive. A margin of hesitation remains. If we don't focus only on the dreadful faces, we can see variations of color emerging over the dark black with glimmers of light like caresses, confining with traces of green, the color of spring in the symbolism and nature.
In the pictorial works of this author, no claim or intention to avoid the present are to be inferred.
He goes down into himself, flies from one latitude to the other, speaks of a dimension in which elements of concrete experience and interiority are recognizable, the interiority is with no boundaries. His man walks through narrow walls, in tunnels of today and tomorrow, as an abandoned exile. Modern elements of life come to our mind, as television and computer, wheedling and segregating. Still, reference is made to other facts as well, elements which deceive and cause distress.
Difficult chromatic chords are visible, such as, for example, brick red, gray and blue. Yet, a stronger harmony rises from this contrast. Some lights are crushed. The edge of the yellow splits a dissemination of white and this is also a way to balance the forces of the colors, which do not explode in the highest notes, but comply with the pitch of them all.
"Drawing is the basis of painting," argues Annigoni. This rule is very true if we consider our painter. Now the line writes the freedom of movement and replies to the impulse, later brings geometric resonances, providing quivers of scans and forming simple or complex so far unknown shapes, dressed by gradations of color.
Lengua is unconventional artist. The more we know about his work, the more we are persuaded.
Franco Ruinetti