LESLIE GLENN DAMHUS
A SENSE OF PLACE
27th November - 12th December 2021
Electro Studios Project Space
St Leonards on Sea
Responding to the title, A Sense of Place, this mixed group show explores themes of family, heritage, migration, displacement, identity, nostalgia, memory and loss through paintings, drawings, sculpture, installation and mixed media.
The paintings of Leslie Glenn Damhus combine the historical and the contemporary, weaving modern-day cultural references through Renaissance imagery.
Her process begins by gathering images and ideas from many sources, appropriating and reimagining them. Creating collages in her computer, she makes transfer prints which she lays onto wooden panels. The technique leaves anomalies; textures and faded images on the surface mimic deteriorating frescoes. Using tiny brushes and with great attention to detail, she begins the oil painting. Her fascination with contrasts is another important theme.
Filled with playful symbolism and double meanings; strange and curious animals or fruits and plants, the viewer is often confronted by the unsettling gaze of a hairless cat or dog. Contemporary fabrics play another important role; swaddling clothes, or the Virgin's dress, are patterned in polka dots or bubble gum tones of yellow, pink and blue urban camouflage. Haloes become decorative plates or flowers and headpieces turn into pigeon-adorned cabbages or knitted animal hats.
Whether she’s referencing Renaissance paintings juxtaposed against contemporary art, beauty against ugliness, the serious with the playful, or searching for perfection whilst permitting serendipity, she is always attempting to find a balance between old and new.
Early in 2020, Leslie’s beloved mother suffered a severe stroke from which she sadly never recovered. This loss and exploration of her family by looking back through old family albums, letters, unfinished novels, and sorting china, furniture and treasured possessions informs her new work. For this exhibition, Leslie has revitalised an older painting, Virgin of the Rocks, by reworking the background incorporating designs from her mother’s vintage silk fabric collection.
Read more about the A Sense of Place here
EXHIBITION ARTWORKS
EXHIBITION INSTALL PHOTOS
