Liliana Leins was born in Schio, near to Vicenza, Italy, in 1946.
She is the youngest of three children.
Her father, who went to Argentina in search of work, never returned and consequently lost all contact with his family.
In order to survive her mother started smuggling cigaretts, stock cubes and chocolate in a suitcase from Switzerland to Italy. A familiar post war story.
Liliana grew up in a convent in Italy, but at the age of eighteen joined her mother who was by then living in Lugano. Liliana taught primary school children, but her desire to draw and paint took up all of her free time. By the time she reached 30, she was married, had two daugters and was living in Zürich. It was then that she decided to persue her passion with great determination.
“I fully accept the fact that my life is divided between family and work and I fully respect the norms of daily life, but the time came when I realized that to be able to breath I had to, and therfore did, create my own space in order to do as I pleased without having to justify myself to anyone..”
1978: first exhibit of abstract aquarell
“…are like flying colours of light that I accompany, catch, and which then land on my paper. My aim being that the colours unite and don’t contaminate each other. "
1982: ceramic work
“Ceramic discs. There was a time, when it was believed, that the sun was a disk. The thinnest geometric form possible. Therfore “ let the sun be born” - I will create it as black as lava, or as white as a communion wafer.”
1990: Acrylic on canvas
“Acrylic colours are thick, they have body, they are slow, they are tangable material. Acrylic colours allow layering, splitting and peeling. Through peeling, bottom layers of colours appear, colours perhaps long forgotten, colours that may even clash. They are walls setting limits but at the same time they are walls on which I can vent my unlimited feelings.”
1992: Objects in cement
“forming objects made from cement is like making sand-castles, I will make towers, ‘stele’. A solitary presence of time, corroded but still present. A silent challenge.”
Abne, or as part of a group, Liliana Leins exibits throughtout Switzerland. She is member of the Artist’s Association of Zürich. Today,
Liliana Leins portrays on her canvases “walls” which, due to the hazzards of time, are in the process of peeling. The measurements of these canvases are well within human reach. As with the ‘stele’, she creates only what she can carry. But, they are not ‘walls’, they are not ‘towers’, they serve only as pretext.
" It is a game between reflection and association, approach and abstract, that which is the essence of her language as an artist. Layers of colours, corroded through time, are liberated from their negative association. They become a spiritual heritage, a testimony of will, a relived experience, a poster of persistant verse of poetry that doesn’t want to be forgotten."