Lidia León Cabral
Was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic in 1962. From an early age, she’s been captivated with shapes, colors, sound and movement, shadows, lights… During her teenage years she focused on photography. Received training in developing black and white film in Massachusetts, and color at Rochester Institute of Technology in upstate New York.
In 1987 she obtained her architecture degree from the Universidad Nacional Pedro Henríquez Ureña in Santo Domingo. Over the next 10 years, she worked on design and construction on a range of projects. Combined with her most demanding and gratifying purpose, being mother for Lidia and Luis Viyella León. Since 1996 Lidia has been involved in different companies related to various branches of her extended family, including Editorial Padilla, E. León Jimenes Foundation, Cervecería Nacional Dominicana …she is currently a member of the Board of Directors of Henla and the Family Council.
Creativity and artistic expression have been a constant feature of Lidia’s life. In 2004 she released Reflejos del Alma a debut album in which her poems were first set to music by Héctor Martínez Cabruja and sung by Dominican tenor Francisco Casanova. In 2007 Lidia released her second CD, Amor encendido. This time, the music producer Jochy Sánchez, selected a diversity of genres, including bachata, salsa, ballad, and created a fusion of rhythms performed by various Dominican artists.
In 2013 Lidia commits to her creative expression and participates as LiLeón in the 27th National Visual Arts Biennial in Santo Domingo with the installation Arte De Nacer | ADN, which received the award giving by the public. That same year her composition of 12 self-portrailt: Entre miradas… Yo, received an honorary mention in Santo Domingo Drawing Biennial.
LiLeón shares Jaula Brillante an interactive installation, at the 28th National Visual Arts Biennial in Santo Domingo, receiving for a second time, the award giving by the public. In addition to other exhibitions in the Dominican Republic, LiLeón presents in 2014 for second opportunity, Latitudes y Longitudes, this time at the Wynwood Warehouse Project, Miami, Florida.
In 2015 she collaborates with the new Cardiovascular Center CEDIMAT, having the permanent installation Árbol Corazón [Heart tree]. In 2016 she started the Ephemeral Art project at the Perelló Cultural Center, where the Wabi Sabi series was born, in which she continues working.
The need to expand her horizons and share her work with other cultures, leads Lidia to spend a good part of the year in Canada, where she had the opportunity to participate in two collective exhibitions in Montreal. See list of exhibitions attached.
“My work reaffirms that I am a reflection of a collective reality greater than my own individual reality. It reveals to me that we are interconnected, like drops of the same ocean. It encourages me to discover what is beyond a simple look.”
LiLeón’s current work is influence by Wabi Sabi, the art of the finding authenticity above all. Observing closely nature’s natural cycles, with ingenuity, amazement and gratitude.
WORK PROCESS
My source of inspiration usually flows naturally and spontaneously from a dialogue between my inner being and what surrounds me. Most of the time, it starts at a visceral level, rather than intellectual. It is a force born from the womb, from the entrails with the need to find the most appropriate channel of expression.
I get support from the periods of meditation, which help to clear the thoughts, open the channels of perception of all the senses. Sharpening that state of alert, which allows interweaving the present moment with universal realities, such as birth, death, evolution, transformation… revealing the link between the intangible and the visible, the personal and the collective. In my case, art is the vehicle that best expresses the interconnection between science, nature and spirituality.
These spaces of silence sometimes come into conflict with the obsessive impulse to work tirelessly to complete the conceived. In those moments it helps me to talk with people I trust, to write, to draw, to take pictures, to dance, to walk, to laugh at myself… To have patience, to let go and trust that the process has its time. I let myself be guided, returning to that state, in which work is meditation. I enjoy all the stages as a little girl, especially the dialogue with others when I finally present my work. This space of sharing nourishes the social need that every human being has.
