Palmira Hernández de Lueck

Despite having lived and worked in Germany for many years, Palmira Hernández de Lueck was born in Guadalajara, a city in the north of Mexico. Remaining rooted in the artistic soil of her homeland, a sense of her cultural ancestry, and her internal psyche is reflected in these stunning works.

Suzie Walshe 

These sumptuous paintings represent a crossroads of East and West. Drawing upon sources as varied as Orientalism, Byzantine art, Mycenaean metalwork, and Persian rugs, the artist also exhibits more contemporary references including Art Nouveau symbolism, and modernist Abstraction. Employing a strongly stylized painting method, the work is distinguished by layered shapes and elegant gold. The artist’s figurative work is distinguished by dynamic, undulating, and lyrical brushstrokes combined with curved “whiplash” lines of syncopated rhythm. The striking two-dimensionality with which Hernández de Lueck surrounds her figures evokes the gold ground found in much Byzantine religious art, a ground that, in its negation of space, may be regarded as negating time—and in so doing, creating a figure of eternity.

In one work, entitled Angel of the Atlantic the central figure’s crimson robe appears flattened in a technique that evinces obvious similarities to Russian icon painting. Simultaneously, her dewy skin is rounded and dimensional attesting to an extraordinary decorative beauty. The artist treats the human figure without shadow, and heightens the lush sensuality of skin by surrounding it with areas of translucent, highly ornamental, and brilliantly composed areas of decoration. Here birth, death, and the sensuality of life exist side-by-side, suspended in a state of eloquent equilibrium. Charismatic and forceful, Hernández de Lueck’s use of seductive color, vibrant brushwork, and sinuous line highlight the development of the artist’s sense of freedom and her unique style.

In other works, she focuses her attention on signature depictions of everyday objects in an enigmatic and mellifluous abstracted style. These works draw on Mexican folk art and ceramics for their themes and rich use of color and texture. Nonethelesss, their sophisticated compositions are more closely indebted to Cubism. These works straddle the line between representation and abstraction, revealing how ordinary objects often serve as a point of departure for an artist’s abstract vision, or, alternatively, how an artist’s abstract forms may subtly suggest recognizable elements. Such work addresses three significant preoccupations in contemporary art: shifting perceptions of identity; explorations of the political landscape; and the notion of the sublime and the dematerialization of the art object. The artist’s strength lies within this fluid movement between genres and categories. Caught between description and dreamlike states, and the observed and the imagined, Palmira Hernández de Lueck’s work transforms the natural world into poetic visions and fantasy, while still utilizing symbolic elements to convey psychological ideas and emphasize the "freedom" of art from traditional culture.