Colloque minérale 1960

Léonor Fini summons an otherworldly conversation between figures in “Colloque minérale.” Imagine her there, coaxing these forms into being, in the studio—a place of alchemy, a site of transformation. I’m struck by the textured surfaces. They are built up with layers of paint, like sediment, each stroke an accumulation of thought and feeling. I imagine Fini’s hand moving across the canvas, her mind a whirlwind of associations, memories, and dreams. The figures emerge from the darkness, green and brown, holding their little glowing spheres, like precious planets. Is that a turtle between them? It makes me think of Remedios Varo and other surrealist painters, all talking to each other across time, through the language of symbols and archetypes. It’s like they’re saying: Let’s not be bound by the world. Let’s make a new one. Painting’s like that – the possibilities are endless!