Through the Woods, Across the Sea: Jomari T’leon

T’WAS

What is a journey, but simply point A to point B? And yet they say there is nothing truly simple that exists.

Across a landscape of flat planes, of overlapping facts and fictions, a trajectory for an escape is mapped out. From childhood to adulthood, we follow the Character through abrupt planes, incised into the same spaces where naïveté and innocence are two different places. Plotted out as if it stops along a route, the paintings seem to stand alone, and they do. But they are all part of a bigger picture capturing a journey.

It has been proven that our environments growing up do not dictate who or what we become. In “Warmth,” perceptions of evil are threshed out between a monstrous figure lovingly holding a child, set against an idyllic and tranquil landscape. A monster to you may be the kindest creature to someone.

Unsettling still lifes “Premonition I and II” juxtapose terrain-like formations against sinister motifs: a serpent and a skull. With countless interpretations, we use whatever we justify as fear — to keep us from advancing. Like a frog in boiling water, we ignore signs, we capitalize on resilience and adaptation, whereas the brutal truth is that there is nothing where we exist anymore.

The Character has grown up, and with a companion (actual or superimposed — the rendering akin to a collage questions the sincerity) looks into the distance, pondering “This isn’t all that there is.” Or is it? When will we realize that we must leave that which holds us down?

Reappearing, the serpent twists in front of a “Map,” one that somewhat echoes an ultrasound. Either way, the journey from start to finish is an arduous one, filled with beings that mean harm, demons and devils along an arduous path.

Under a canopy of stars, the shadows of tropical trees, the Character, now with a friend and with a stranger, is set amongst elements of a journey. In a simple boat, traversing, getting lost “Across the Sea” means to move forward, to be somewhere. These still waters don’t run deep. It’s frozen, and its inhabitants: fossils of what they never will be again and what they never will be if they move forward.

Perhaps it is maturity, perhaps. After crossing, the map is no longer necessary. It is burned somewhere along the “Shore,” as the Character looks back to “The Other Side.”

Through the Woods, Across the Sea. Through the woods, from birth, we linger where we survive, but we will not always survive where we linger. Across the sea, what awaits is unknown, but it is for certain somewhere we have never been before.

Blurb

Through the woods, from birth, we linger where we survive, but we will not always survive where we linger. Across the sea, what awaits is unknown, but it is for certain somewhere we have never been before. Jomari T’Leon’s latest exhibition “Through the Woods, Across the Sea,” follows an unnamed Character in their journey from a place that no longer holds value towards somewhere they truly belong – including every stop and every sign along the way.

Koki Lxx