The Naïve Look from the Slope

„If painting plays any particular role in this laboratory, it can be compared to the cleansing work that the human mind performs during sleep: the tangling of memories and the most persistent thoughts into a uniform magma, which paradoxically serves to maintain order. As a result of a similar process - initiated by Norman during breaks from the tiring work on his films - from the jumbled figures in his painting there emerges a panorama of the contemporary world. In this light it is easy to inscribe Leto's paintings into a realist formula, although >verism< does not exhaust it: on the artist's numerous canvases the viewer will find, among other things, references to technological and scientific representations of the world (diagrams, infographics etc.), to which contemporary man is inclined to attribute greater adequacy than to photographic reproduction. In the case of similar motifs in Leto's painting one can still speak of his realism, giving the word, however, a philosophical resonance.” (source: www.pgs.pl, fragment of the text by Arkadiusz Półtorak, curator of the exhibition „People who constantly want something from me”) A multimedia artist, painter, creator of films and spatial objects, writer. In 2009-2010 Norman Leto stayed in New York, working on the autobiographical novel „Sailor”, on the basis of which a film was simultaneously made. After moving to Warsaw in 2010 he began work on the next film, „Photon”, which premiered in 2017. The artist is currently preparing another screenplay with the working title „Pilot 9/11”, concerning the events of 11 September 2001. One of the larger presentations of Norman Leto's artistic output, „People who constantly want something from me”, could be seen at the State Art Gallery in Sopot in 2016. Another show, titled „Go and See”, took place at the Museum in Zabrze. In 2018 the exhibition „Kintop. From Film” was organised at the Jan Tarasin Art Gallery in Kalisz. Most recently, Norman Leto's works could be seen at the Libra Auction House. EXHIBITED: - Norman Leto. The Naïve Look, Libra Auction House, Warsaw, 2021