Leonardo Anker Vandal: In a Landscape

In a Landscape is Leonardo Anker Vandal’s first journey through the land of form. Always an abstract artist, Vandal was inspired by Song dynasty painters of 12th century China, and for the first time, his paintings take shape – or the hint of it, hovering somewhere between abstraction and landscape. 

The technique and palette are familiar from the autumn-hued Adagio paintings that have occupied him for the last decade. His familiar influences are all here, hidden under the surface or in a title: the poetry of Keats, the wistful Lieder of his beloved Mahler, the idea of the artist as The Wanderer or traveler – this latter concept shared by the Song painters. 

In some only the merest hint of atmosphere appears, like the sun struggling to show itself through clouds. In others, the dark outlines of mountains take shape. Never to be seen is a human form, as is common in Western tradition. Neither Vandal nor the Song artists painted from life – or at least not external life. Both his landscapes and theirs recall an inner wandering.