In her most recent exhibition Liliana Costanza displays two very different aspects of her artistic personality, showing unusual versatility with water color and ink on paper. In the paintings serene landscapes vie for the viewer’s sensitive nature appears in glowing colors. Nor are they totally naturalistic. Indeed, they seem to belong more to her inner life than to any exterior depiction. Howevwe her deep love for nature is evident in glowing, contrasting hues. Yet when her need arises, she can subtly blend them in a most harmonioous manner. No matter how serene and lyrical, these landscapes are shimmeringly alive and beautiful.

There is plenty of beauty also in other, dramatically colores pictures that wander into more intimate sates of mind, recalling romantic skies worthy of Berlioz at his most expansive or, specially in underwater-like scenes. Debussy at his most mysterious. There is also a decidedly theatrical mood in others. In spite of the delicate technique that Costanza has chosen, she can achieve remarkably dramatic effects.

Her ink drawings show a totally different world. The link with the water colors may be found in the delicacy of the lines that separate the figures. Yet, at the same time, they are the indissoluble bond between countless, light bizarre pattern. Different, delicate strokes fill the figures that appear with the full black or white contrasting ones. This provides an incessantly varied clash of the grays that result from the different textures, which gives a clash of the grays that result from the different textures, which gives a strange unity to the overall, dynamic structure.

Forma Gallery, 2004