LESLIE GLENN DAMHUS
RWA
LESLIE GLENN DAMHUS
RWA
ABOUT
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.
Leslie Glenn Damhus’ childhood home in Pennsylvania, US, was an apartment directly above that of the renowned artist Paul Bransom, who illustrated the 1913 US edition of Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows. He taught her how to draw animals, and this influence, coupled with her passion for Renaissance painting, can be seen in her work. Glenn Damhus graduated from the University of the West of England, Bristol with an Honours Degree in Fine Arts. She was elected a Royal West of England Academy Academician (RWA) in 2017. She has lived in the US, Denmark and Australia and currently lives and works in Frome Somerset, England.
SELECTED ARTWORKS (Click for full details)
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS (Click for full details)
PAST EXHIBITIONS (Click for full details)
NEWS
‘The Vanishing - Precarious’
European Mink and Flame-templed Babbler oil on wooden panel 2021 50cm x 30cm. A new work from her series about animals on the endangered list. This work is being offered for sale in support of @artforyourworld and Leslie will be making a donation to the campaign from the sale.
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Leslie has two paintings selected and currently on show at the Bath Society of Artists Annual Open
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Proud to announce that Glenn Damhus has two paintings in the Society of Women Artists 160th annual open - an online exhibiton
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A solo show of paintings celebrating women's achievements at the BRLSI Bath, January - February 2020
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