Kirsty O'Leary-Leeson

My next exhibition in conjunction with the Chelsea Fringe - anybody know Alan Titchmarsh’s email address, think he might quite like this exhibition, have tweeted details to Monty Don.

Have laid down my  pencil and picked up a paintbrush, unfortunately it’s for the sake of decorating, urgghh how tedious. The painting bits not so bad, it’s having to take all the books off the shelves and dust them all, taking down all the pictures on the walls, and then when you hang them back up the hook falls out and they smash onto the floor because it seems that it was actually only the dust holding them up… that is the rubbish bit.

Next time it might be easier just to move house.

When we all arrived at the gallery I kept thinking 'oh I saw you on the telly!’

The exhibition went well, I was lucky enough to make a sale, so at least covered costs and a little extra for the credit cards; but not enough buyers and wheelers and dealers of the art world; we intend to push forward with another exhibition as a group in the Autumn, but with more concentration on the pr and marketing’  Hmm can’t decide whether it would be better to be represented by a gallery but lose 60% of the sale to them, or have the tremendous hard work of self promotion but keep the profits (if there are any)

After The Monet

I’ve hardly added anything to Tumblr over the last 6 months because of juggling teaching, organising After The Monet exhibition and trying to get ‘Melancholy Strings’ finished for the exhibition.  The exhibition was a massive undertaking, and consisted mainly of spending hours infront of the computer composing harassing emails to fellow exhibitors.

It looked great and the experience of the hang was pretty painless.  It was lovely meeting my fellow artists from 'Show Me The Monet’, few of us actually got to meet each other properly at the original private view as we were bound to our artwork trying to coerce people into buying it.

When we all arrived at the gallery I kept thinking 'oh I saw you on the telly!’

The exhibition went well, I was lucky enough to make a sale, so at least covered costs and a little extra for the credit cards; but not enough buyers and wheelers and dealers of the art world; we intend to push forward with another exhibition as a group in the Autumn, but with more concentration on the pr and marketing’  Hmm can’t decide whether it would be better to be represented by a gallery but lose 60% of the sale to them, or have the tremendous hard work of self promotion but keep the profits (if there are any)

The Space Between Us (diptych)

Wood, gesso, pencil

Leaving a silhouette of light behind takes a great deal of time, there’s no rubbing out and no short cuts using a masking fluid, just torture of the eyes.

Melancholy Strings - image 1 detail

Melancholy Strings (triptych

Wood, gesso, pencil

This set of drawings should really be a quadtych really with the fourth being completely white, the light through the trees growing brighter, bleaching life away.

It is inspired by something that happened a few years ago: my little daughter was sitting on the arm of the sofa when she fell off backwards banging her head on a stool that was nearby; she really screamed but I wasn’t unduly worried, children make such a huge fuss, then she put her hand to the back of her head and when she pulled it away blood was pouring down onto her wrist - at that moment I was flooded with scenes from films or tv which use the common scenario of someone being knocked or falling over and it seems innocuous enough but then they put their hand to the back of their head to discover it covered in blood, then they promptly and unexpectedly collapse and die. 

It made me realise just how much images from todays media are part of our psyche.  (By the way my daughter was fine, after half an hour of intense fear). 

I think I visualise things in quite a cinematographic way, and this triptych employs the cinematic ploy of the light growing brighter and the characters eyes blurring as their life ebbs away.  The title refers to the soundtrack.

It ’s not really meant to be depressing, life doesn’t fade to black it’s simply lost from view.

Venue: Coningsby Gallery, Tottenham Street, London W1T 4RJ

Dates:

4th – 9th March 2013

Private View:

Monday 4th March 2013 from 18.30 to 20.30

Contact:

Kirsty O’Leary Leeson – kirsty@afterthemonet.co.uk

Website:

http://afterthemonet.co.uk

‘After the Monet’

showcases a diverse and stunning selection of both 2 and 3 dimensional artworks from the cream of Britain’s most talented emerging and established contemporary artists. The 20 artists all featured in the 2012 series of BBC2’s popular art competiton ‘Show me the Monet’.

The fifteen part series followed amateur and professional artists as they competed for a coveted place at the

‘Show me the Monet’ Grand Exhibition and Sale at the Mall Galleries in London. From an original 3000 applicants just over a hundred shortlisted contenders faced the ‘Hanging Committee’ - a panel of judges drawn from some of the art world’s toughest critics: Charlotte Mullins, David Lee and Roy Bolton. The judges were looking for originality, technical skill and emotional impact and to earn their place at the exhibition the artists needed to gain the approval of at least two members of the panel. It was a chance of a lifetime to get their work seen – and bought – by professional art buyers and the public alike.

Now at the

Coningsby Gallery exhibition many of the successful artists have come together again to present superb examples of their work in ‘After the Monet’. Did the critics get it right? Be sure to see the exhibition and meet the artists at ‘After the Monet’, 4th – 9th March, Coningsby Gallery, Tottenham Street, London W1T 4RJ

Artists:

Arina • Anne Blankson-Hemans • Sarah Caswell • Timothy Gatenby • Richard Howell Jacqui Jones • Oliver Jones • Kevin Lee • Gillian Lee Smith • Gill Levine • Georgina Maxwell Charles Moxon • Kirsty O’Leary-Leeson • Shani Osman • William Pearce • Kerri PrattThomas Prendeville • Trish Spence • Caroline Summerfield • Diana Bernice Tackley

Art and The Coast  Exhibition

Art and the coast Exhibition

Exhibition Statement

My current art practice is inspired by the idea that the landscape can act as a portrait of the soul; I use my physical surroundings as a metaphor for my inner life of imagination and emotion.

In 2008, my first year at Norwich University College of the Arts I was given the project ‘My Space’. Well my space was anywhere my four children were not, escaping from my house, washing up, the kids and chaos etc. My space was literally time to be alone in my own head usually when taking the dog out for a walk. I started drawing lots of little images recording something about that walk, but it quickly became more about how I was feeling that day, or influenced by what I had recently read, films I had seen, music I had listened to, the landscape becoming a metaphor for my internal space.

The drawings on show today are the result of that project and some new ones that I did in response to my proposal for Art and The Coast.

As a child I grew up in the small Midlands town of Rugby, but we had a caravan on the windswept cliff top at East Runton, and for 12 years I spent every holiday running wild along the coast from Sheringham to Cromer.

I have lived in North Norfolk for the last 15 years and still I view the landscape as representing a wild freedom, childhood memories blurring reality. I proposed to make multiple postcard size drawings, reflecting the experience of being in a certain place along the coast on a certain day, as I had in my college project. Some of the drawings were to be made on days when I had not visited the coast but had instead used my memories of the landscape or weather on past visits. I wanted to draw what I knew and experienced not just what I saw.

Drawing was particularly relevant to this project as in drawing there is a relation with the provisional and unfinished; it exists in a state of suspense. The present is an amalgamation of the past and future – both of which are absent, so drawing is the present that shows the trace of something that is no longer there.

The postcard size of the artwork was to reflect not just my own connection, but also the coasts dependence upon tourism.