_May 7, 2012_ The Reincarnation Album is finally out (Goldverse Publishing)
hard cover 30x30cm 42 pages more shots on FB
_February 26, 2012_ "THE BOATHAND" - a novel by Victor Norrland - designed and illustrated by Lia Vio
This novel tells an exciting historical tale that takes place at the beginning of the 19th century in a region that is now part of Egypt, Sudan and Eritrea. Ali, a young boat hand who works on a felucca on the Nile, becomes embroiled in fantastic adventures with grave robbers, smugglers and slave traders, and he embarks on a journey by caravan that stretches from Egypt up the Nile to Nubia and on to the Red Sea. During the long journey, Ali learns with wonder about the hopes and dreams of his travel companions. After his final escapade when he falls in love with a beautiful slave girl, he eventually discovers his own dream and determines to try to make it come true. The vivid and detailed narrative transports the reader into a world of lively adventure and paints an extraordinarily multifaceted picture of north-east Africa at that time. Many of the background descriptions and events and the rooting are based on Ludwig Burckhardt’s 1820 chronicle “Travels in Nubia”.
Designed and illustrated by Lia Vio
German and English Versions for Kindle & iPad
_February 21, 2012_ Photography of Lia Vio ("Signs Of Life" Series) illustrating a marvellous poetry book by Victor Norrland for Kindle & iPad
  |
"Kalte Flammen am Himmel"
Amazon Kindle Edition: link
Description (german): Die „Berichte“ in Vers Form umfassen Beschreibungen von Reise- und Naturerlebnissen, Liebeserklärungen und Anmerkungen. Viele dieser Beschreibungen haben einen metaphorischen oder allegorischen Charakter, aber es gibt auch existenzielle Fragen ansprechende und auch ganz realistische Texte. Alle sind unter äußerst sparsamem Wortgebrauch, sehr eindringlich und sehr poetisch formuliert.
Aurora
Kalte Flammen
am Himmel,
Feuerfarben,
lautlos zuckend
von Horizont zu Horizont.
Eiskalte Nacht,
Schnee
brennend im Himmelsfeuer.
Ihre Haut
glüht fahl
im Widerschein.
© Victor Norrland |
_February 8, 2012_ Lia Vio Solo Show Review by Pen Dalton
Pen Dalton is an artist and art critic and works from her studio in Walthamstow, North East London.
LIA VIO: SOLELY IN MY HEAD
Seemingly bland, still, muted and melancholy and in a narrow range of colours and texture, Lio Via’s photographs reward nonetheless a closer contemplation. What at first seems […] calm and detached builds up as we walk through the collection into associations with mythic and archaic symbolism; and on even closer, even forensic investigation on the part of the viewer - mirroring perhaps the processes of the artist herself - the work emerges as a courageous defense created with photographic art to cope with the effects of civilisations’ conformities, horrors and systematic powers.
On entering the gallery we are immediately faced by images of mirrored mosaic masks. Elements of Hirsts ‘For the Love of God’ diamond skull sculpture or David Altmejd’s mirrored sculptures are recalled, but these, as photographs titled Mining The Silent Evidence refuse a reflective response. On their infinite black backgrounds, the masks are empty: the mirrors reflect nothing recognisable and the matt surface of the photograph reiterates the absorbing sculptural surface, refusing glimpses of self recognition and deflecting introspection. All emphasis is on the play of colors and reflections under veil of timeless and mysterious happenings instilled in the masks inviting viewers own interpretation of events. […]
In the photographs The Twilight of The Gods Lia’s photographed and digitally enhanced photographs of mountainous cliffs similarly deny the viewer any easy identification with pleasant or familiar associations. The mountains appear like barriers behind which a synthetic red sky hints at alien land. Again, in this work there is no peace; what at first appears a pleasant fantasy becomes threatening.
In the enigmatic landscape series Signs of Life the title gives a clue that there are signs to be found in the muted twilight melancholy of these still wooded vistas. What is the significance of the numbers? What has been lost? The photographs are suffused with Romantic associations of loss, loneliness, the slight paranoia of being alone in the woods when dusk falls.
The main body of the gallery is taken up with the stunning monochrome photographs in the Reincarnations series. What first strikes one as viewer is the sense of immense technical control and channeled energy it must have taken to produce photographs of such quality: such pristine cleanliness, stillness and order. Vio photographs flowers, live animals and natural objects in magnificent close-up, apparently capturing the essence of every immaculately groomed hair and whisker, every grain of pollen and vein of petal without blur or loss of focus. Real animals: messy, smelly, animated animals – dogs and apes and decaying blooms are all captured, cleaned, controlled and rendered iconic in unnaturally still and human-like portrait poses. They gaze out at the viewer with clear and knowing eyes – the stillness that Barthes noted* - photography captures so well. Bloom, crystal, dog, ape are resized to the same equivalent scale and arranged in rows like text or Egyptian hieroglyphics and thus invested with latent mysterious meanings and readings. Like the Rosetta stone they represent three equivalent ways of saying the same thing: different stages in the process of re-incarnation. Their common colouring into sepia tint suggests that they all exist in a timeless archaic realm, a reincarnation of the same identity, distilled over time in fetish images drawn from identification with the natural world.
One wall is taken up by a large group of nine immaculate photographs, each separately surfaced with highly reflective glass: nine flower heads divorced from their natural context, without soil or leaf or twig. Each bloom eloquent in its specificity, is unnaturally ripped from its growth and nurture in the past and presented in relation to other blooms in an awkward circle where the void of the black background says as much as the flower heads themselves. Like immigrants, these blooms are slightly damaged by their experience; they have no reference to their past but make new relationships in an alien culture creating new rhythms and modes of being. Vio subtly avoids the formal artistic cliché of limiting associations of flowers to a woman’s body or vagina; yes, her pictures of blooms imply a human identity but they speak more – in their acceptance of slight blemishes, bruises and decay – of the passing of time, the effects of human intercourse and the vulnerability of the void of loneliness.
One of the functions of art making and of art itself is that the artist – using forms and materials as symbols and analogues – can act out large personal and political dramas on a controllable scale. Through colour and form, they can speak of oppression, death, loss and loneliness without fear of real political or emotional consequences. Art making is a special kind of precise and intense lived experience: improvisations or rehearsals which help us to anticipate and cope with the next real life event that comes along: in the next relationship, the next experience of love and loss, of domination and subordination. This is nowhere more apparent than in the sinisterly named Mickey Army photographs: immaculate and heavily digitised mechanistic rows of Mickey Mouse toy characters. Small armies of toys have been manipulated to create impressions of control, conformity and rigidity suppressing the anarchic qualities of childhood play.[…] When I spoke earlier in this review of courage, it seemed to me that out of this background of repression - and with an unusual sense of focus - has bloomed some remarkable artwork.
_____
*Roland Barthes. [1980] Camera Lucida
© Pen Dalton 2012
_February 2-25, 2012_ "Solely In My Head" : Solo Show at Tokarska Gallery London.
_January 12, 2012_ "Reincarnation" on display in Penang, Malaysia
The Photography Open Salon exhibition in Penang will be hosted by CHINA HOUSE and Alliance Française de Penang.
The exhibition dates and opening times are as follows:
CHINA HOUSE
Vernissage opening on 12 Jan 6.30pm
Exhibition dates : 12 Jan – 11 Feb 2012
Alliance Française de Penang
Vernissage opening on 18 Jan 7.30pm
Exhibition dates : 18 Jan – 8 Feb 2012
Alliance Française, founded in Paris in 1884, and state-supported in France since 1886, is a unique association that aims to promote both French language and Culture all around the world. It is a large world-wide network consisting of more than 1,000 centers established in more than 130 countries. China House is part of the Straits Collection, it is a traditional compound of 3 heritage buildings linked by an open air courtyard. Now converted into 14 spaces with galleries, shops, cafés, restaurants and theatre.
|
