Quick Cart
£0.00 (0 items)
next
Jenny Leonard
Degree: BA Hons Fine Art
University: Norwich University College of Arts
Graduation Year: 2011
Leonard's works are both raw and inaccessible, contrasting bare hessian with the unexpectedly polished finish of plaster. They capture movement in a strange way: a crystallised dynamism, and an estranged journeyer on the brink.
Jenny Leonard – Artist Statement
In travel and in painting I search for a world within a world.
My work is derived from experiences backpacking and the sense of physical and emotional dislocation in strange, foreign places. I am interested in the picturesque and the tourist ideal, the way the world is framed in a photograph and the need to explore, capture and conquer. In the aftermath of travel I discover a space to contemplate these anonymous landscapes in a placeless world through painting.
I indulge in the formations of simple landscape compositions, exploring the marks I crave in the picture and the sights I pursue in travel. The paintings emerge as a kind of fantasy idyllic backdrop with the familiar among the abstract, where inventive forms compete with existing objects.
Morphing the terrain as I paint, overly saturated colours and gestural marks capture the essence of the form rather than its appearance. Instant brushstrokes leave the end result at the mercy of the materials. I push and pull the brush across a white washed surface and allow the foreign yet familiar place surface.
During the intuitive process of painting, absurdities surface in the picture, reducing the complex scenery to simple, comprehendible forms in a simple brushstroke – resulting in a generic and universally understood landscape, however peculiar.
This exercise becomes the final stage and reflection of my travels.
Read More...
Education:
2008 – 2011 Norwich University College of the Arts. 1st – BA HONS Fine Art.
2000 – 2002 Braintree College. AVCE Art and Design. ‘AA’ Double award.
Solo Exhibitions:
2011 Distances, Anteros Art Foundation, Norwich.
2011 Accidental Landscapes, Assembly House, Norwich.
2010 Figuratively Speaking, The Dome Gallery, Braintree Library, Essex.
2010 Presence in the Place, Stickyfingerz Gallery, Norwich.
Group Exhibitions / Art fairs:
2012 Painting and Sculpture Exhibition, Candid Arts Trust, London.
2012 Show your Face, Cultivate Gallery, Vyner Street, London.
2012 Art at the Underbelly, Submit & Exhibit, Rumsey Wells, Norwich.
2011 Angel Christmas Art Fair, Candid Arts Trust, London.
2011 Drawing Crowds, The Stone Space, Leytonstone, London.
2011 ShopArtNorwich, Abandoned store front converted with Norwich Arts Centre.
2011 September – November Debut, Debut Contemporary Gallery, London.
2011 SAVORR & Seven Minutes, Stew Gallery, Norwich
2011 Brinkmanship, Coast Arts Festival, Norfolk.
2011 Fakenham Contemporary Open, Norfolk.
2011 Elements, Material Worlds, The Forum, Norwich.
2011 Braintree Open, Braintree Museum, Essex.
2011 Eastern Open, Kings Lynn Arts Centre.
2011 Create for Cross, Art Auction, St Gregory Centre of the Arts, Norwich.
2010 Showcase, Richmix, Bethnal Green, London.
2010 No Working Title, toured 3 University galleries.
2010 Shades of Grey, Stew Gallery, Norwich.
2009 Showcase, Cafe 1001 Brick Lane, London.
2009 The Late Shift, Sainsbury Art Centre, UEA, Norwich.
2009 FANN (Festival of Architecture Norfolk and Norwich) NUCA.
2009 Art of Norwich 7 & 8, St Margarets Church, Norwich.
Selected Commissions: Mural and Painting Projects
2011 Comm-Tech Communications Centre, Norwich.
2011 Age UK, Grays Fair Court, Norwich.
2010 British Airways, Winter Olympic Project, Vancouver.
2010 British Airways, Head Office Reception, Waterside, London.
2010 The Window Coffee House, Norwich.
2010 CafeNeon Restaurant, Agios Stefanos, Crete.
2009 Welbeck Financial Advisors, London.
2009 South Park Primary School, Ilford, London.
2008 South Rise Primary School, Plumstead, London.
2006 The Remarkables Ski Resort, Queenstown, New Zealand.
2006 The Peppertree Lodge, Bay of Islands, New Zealand.