Freedom

The title of this series takes its inspiration from the sensation of freedom experienced through the sun and the sky, as these elements connect the artist with her origins in Ecuador, and with the divine creator.

The sun plays a major role in the cultural and spiritual life of Ecuadorian people, and now plays a similar part in the artist’s life in the United Arab Emirates, which has around 300 days of sunshine a year. However, the series also reflects on a loss of freedom, in the face of wars between nations and limitations on personal freedoms in so many parts of the world.

The paintings are a call to experience and imagine true freedom through the symbol of the bird, who can fly freely and unobstructed through the sky and over the earth. The artist turns her attention to the simple pleasures of being able to breathe pure air and having close contact with nature, which are now precious luxuries not available to everyone.

Her work takes a Minimalist approach, presenting the natural materials in their raw state in order to appreciate them in their most simple and beautiful form. Through her work with natural materials and abstraction, Ana Liz invites viewers to experience a kind of freedom from the everyday, and to enter the realm of the spiritual. In this way, her work echoes the likes of Mark Rothko, whose large abstract ‘color field’ paintings evoke a quasi-religious response in the viewer, and ponder questions about the nature of existence itself. While Rothko’s canvas seems to recede into the wall, Ana Liz’s protrude into three-dimensional space and create a sculptural effect that has a significant impact on the viewer.