In her new collection, Loribelle explores familiar and poignant themes with an urgency that speaks to the moment, employing her signature line technique to delineate eyes, faces, and human forms entangled and abstracted into the minimalist geometric background which represents the room of the mind. She notes that "With the pandemic reducing the worlds of many to the confines of their phone screen, [the] 'room' motif seems more pertinent than ever...as a metaphor for the mind and the characters and scenes inhabiting it, signifying the external world filtered into the subconscious."
The tenuousness of a reality mediated by technology and social media distortions is yet another strong theme of Coronation. However, the overarching theme is undoubtedly the inescapable reckoning all must face with history. As power shifts in the US reverberate around the world, Coronation compels viewers to interrogate the things that hold sovereign power in their lives, prefaced on the recognition that there is need for a re-orientation, repudiation, or re-affirmation of individual commitments.
By her own account, Loribelle was no stranger to the emotional turmoil many experienced during lockdown. The pressures of living with restricted access to family, friends, and the outdoors while news of Covid-19 casualties trickled in forced the artist to take a stand against looming mortality by rediscovering and reaffirming the purpose of her art as a medium for self-expression and for exhuming the hidden contentions of the mind. Coronation is an outcome of this defiance and the show will run at HOFA’s flagship gallery in Mayfair for 2 weeks from 2 to 16 as both an in-gallery show and a virtual exhibition, for all to enjoy.
