AS IF IT WERE
THROUGH A MIRROR

DENNIS LEDER

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The creativity and versatility of the unconscious are impressive. Even more impressive is how the symbolic language of the unconscious reflects personal data in real time.

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It has been said that dreams are mirrors—autobiographical and encrypted; their purpose is to convey a message to the dreamer, and their content serves as the vocabulary for deciphering that message.

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The conscious mind imposes order on the dream, and often it is the storyline that seems most important. Thus, access to the message of the unconscious is lost because its mode is not rational.

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In the field of the visual arts, the common habit is to want to see something that represents reality. That is how the meaning of a work is usually understood. But the fact that some works move us more than others implies that the meaning reaches levels deeper than appearances. It is the same with contemporary art; at times a work can move us even when its content is not visually descriptive.

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We might say that the content—whether in dreams or in the visual arts—is the starting point for understanding. The very person who dreams, paints, or constructs a sculpture has access only to part of its meaning. It is imaginative intelligence (associations, myths, symbols, and sensations) that complements the initial ideas about the “work.” But what is certain in any interpretation is that the spirit of the creator is imprinted in the work as if it were through a mirror.

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In a more specific sense, the works presented here share a process spanning the last five years. The personal vocabulary reflects an interest in architecture, in sacred spaces, in the tension between the static and the dynamic. It also reflects a certain fascination with the hidden order within chaos—something akin to what mathematicians describe as the “strange attractor” that resides in chaotic systems, weaving new paradigms.

The meaning of the whole presented here is like a series of dreams whose significance is both present and still emerging.

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Dennis Leder
Guatemala, march 30, 2025