Nicolás Leiva: Infinite Cycle Under Fire

Ruiz-Healy Art is pleased to present Nicolás Leiva: Infinite Cycle Under Fire, opening May 9 with an artist reception from 6:30 - 8:00 pm. Leiva is renowned for his exuberant fantasies in sculpture and painting that encapsulate a staggering range of expressive traditions within a personal, mystic vision. Focusing on the Argentine-born artist’s works in ceramics, the exhibition is a companion show to Nicolas Leiva: Infinite Cycle, a survey of drawings and paintings presented in partnership with Ruiz-Healy Art at Russell Hill Rogers Galleries, Southwest School of Art, San Antonio.

Like the marks in his drawings and paintings, the ceramic pieces are highly gestural, recalling the strokes of writing as much as forms organic and geometric. Though language is invoked, this is presentation, not description. As Pau-Llosa has it, Leiva presents a host of archetypes in his emblems of flight, safety, and mixed delight--but this is theater, not story. Unabashedly lush in an almost unbearable display of plenitude, Leiva’s delight in visual sensuality is emphatic and immediate.

Nicolás Leiva has had many important solo and group exhibitions in the US and internationally. His work is the subject of a major monograph, Nicolás Leiva: The Fire of Self and Multiplication, with texts by Ricardo Pau-Llosa and Mariza Vescovo, published in Italy in 2005. His works are in the permanent collections of the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano Buenos Aires (MALBA), Argentina; the Snite Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana; the Berardo Collection, Lisbon, Portugal, the Gollinelli Collection, Bologna, Italy, the Museum of Art, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.