Art Events, Paris

Home
Art Events
Myth, Magic and Metamorphosis: Inside Leonora Carrington’s Paris Exhibition

Myth, Magic and Metamorphosis: Inside Leonora Carrington’s Paris Exhibition August 6, 2026Art Events, ParisOff

Leonora Carrington: The Alchemy of Transformation Comes to Paris

More than a century after her birth, Leonora Carrington remains one of the most captivating and enigmatic figures in modern art. Refusing to be defined solely as a Surrealist, the British-born, Mexico-based artist developed an extraordinary visual language where mythology, alchemy, literature and spirituality merge into dreamlike narratives that continue to resonate with remarkable relevance today.

This autumn, Almine Rech Paris presents the gallery’s first solo exhibition dedicated to Carrington, bringing together an exceptional selection of paintings, sculptures, drawings, tapestries and works on paper. Rather than offering a chronological retrospective, the exhibition invites visitors into the artist’s unique universe—one in which transformation is not simply a recurring motif but the very foundation of existence.

Beyond Surrealism

Although Leonora Carrington’s name is often associated with Surrealism, her artistic vision has always resisted categorisation.

Neither muse nor follower, she forged an entirely independent practice, drawing equally from Celtic mythology, medieval alchemy, Mexican cosmology, tarot, Jungian psychology and Eastern spiritual traditions. Her paintings reject conventional narratives in favour of symbolic landscapes where human beings coexist with horses, hyenas, dragons, birds and mysterious hybrid creatures.

Portrait of Leonora Carrington, 2010
© Photoshot / TopFoto
© Consejo Leonora Carrington
Courtesy Consejo Leonora Carrington,
rossogranada and Almine Rech

Nothing in Carrington’s universe remains fixed. Animals become guardians, women become alchemists, architecture dissolves into ritual spaces, and time itself seems suspended between memory and prophecy. Reality is not abandoned but expanded, allowing multiple dimensions of existence to unfold simultaneously.

It is this extraordinary ability to dissolve boundaries – between the human and the animal, the visible and the invisible, nature and culture—that makes her work feel strikingly contemporary. Long before ecological thinking, feminism or posthumanist philosophy entered mainstream discourse, Carrington was already imagining a world built upon interconnection rather than hierarchy.

The Art of Transformation

The exhibition explores one of the defining ideas that runs throughout Carrington’s career: transmutation.

Borrowed from alchemical philosophy, transformation becomes more than metaphor. In Carrington’s hands, every material, every creature and every symbol exists in a perpetual state of becoming. Paintings such as The Lovers, La Naguala and El Laberinto reveal an imagination where myth functions not as fantasy, but as an alternative way of understanding reality.

This fascination with metamorphosis extends far beyond painting. Visitors discover an artist who moved effortlessly between sculpture, drawing, tapestry, literature, theatre, jewellery and costume design, treating each discipline as another chapter within the same unfolding narrative.

Particular attention is given to Carrington’s bronze sculptures, among the most remarkable works of her later years. Emerging from wax and clay models developed until the very end of her life, these sculptures populate the gallery with mythical guardians, celestial birds and fantastical beings whose presence feels simultaneously ancient and futuristic. The bronze itself becomes a symbol of transformation – a material permanently suspended between solidity and imagination.

Leonora Carrington, The Lovers, 1987
Oil on canvas
75 × 102.9 cm, 29 1/2 × 40 1/2 in (unframed)
90 × 115.5 × 6.5 cm, 35 1/2 × 45 1/2 × 2 1/2 in (framed)

A Vision That Feels More Relevant Than Ever

Perhaps what makes Leonora Carrington so compelling today is not simply the beauty of her imagery, but the philosophical questions it raises.

Her work challenges rigid systems of thought and proposes a more fluid understanding of identity, nature and knowledge. In her universe, opposites no longer compete – they coexist. Masculine and feminine, science and magic, civilisation and wilderness become complementary forces rather than contradictions.

In a cultural moment increasingly preoccupied with sustainability, interconnectedness and new ways of imagining our relationship with the living world, Carrington’s vision feels remarkably prescient. Her paintings do not offer answers; they invite us to reconsider the invisible structures that shape our perception of reality.

More than fifteen years after her passing, Leonora Carrington continues to speak to a new generation of artists, writers, designers and thinkers. Her work reminds us that imagination is not an escape from the world, but perhaps the most powerful tool we possess for transforming it.

Leonora Carrington
8 September – 10 October 2026
Almine Rech Paris
64 rue de Turenne, 75003 Paris

Tags: alchemy, Almine Rech, art collector, art exhibition, art gallery, contemporary art, cultural travel, female artists, Leonora Carrington, Luxury Lifestyle, Modern Art, mythology, painting, Paris, Paris art scene, Paris exhibitions, Sculpture, surrealism, Surrealist art, What We Adore Magazine