Link to Post:
http://figureground.ca/leslie-wayne/
Julia Schwartz conducts an in-depth interview with painter Leslie Wayne.
Wayne comments: "My relationship to landscape is really rooted in memory, in the light, colors and geography of the West. So here, in the middle of midtown Manhattan, I approach the subject more as an opportunity to depict visual manifestations of physical forces: compression, subduction, morphogenesis, rather than pictures of nature in the traditional sense. And many of the paintings are shaped in ways that accentuate movement and instability. In the large horizontal multi-paneled pictures (which were directly influenced by Elizabeth Murray and Mary Heilmann, by the way) I created a kind of pictorial space that, while far from illusionistic in terms of perspective, are nevertheless frontal compressions of movement in time and space. Generally read from left to right, they express the forces of moving water, shifting tectonic plates, and our impact on the environment. In the tall narrow vertical works, I reference Barnett Newman’s famous zip painting, Wild, isolating the gesture from its larger context by creating a kind of virtual core sample. So by eliminating traditional narrative as a mediator, I’m interested instead in creating an analogous experience to being in nature."
Link to Post:
http://studiocritical.blogspot.com/2013/02/leslie-wayne.html
Valerie Brennan interviews painter Leslie Wayne about her work and process.
Wayne comments: "I start with the given shape of a panel, which quite honestly determines nothing. But it gives me a starting point, which is more dynamic and demanding than a square or a rectangle. I tend to build up several layers of color over time, and once dry to the touch but still soft underneath, I’ll manipulate them in various ways. This is the point at which the painting begins to demand a resolution. If I can’t resolve it, I’ll scrape the whole thing off, or parts of it off and keep the paint for future use as collage material for another painting. While I may have ideas or intentions in mind that relate to geology or gravity for example, or perhaps even the work of another artist, I find that my conceptual foundation solidifies and clarifies itself as a result of working over time and allowing the process be fluid. Otherwise I risk the seduction of staying in my comfort zone and that gets stale fast. It’s a balancing act of maintaining that perfect tension between anticipation, control and letting it go."
Link to Post:
http://dailyserving.com/2011/02/building-up-layers-an-interview-with-leslie-wayne/
Amy Mercer interviews painter Leslie Wayne about her work. Wayne's abstract paintings,which are strongly influenced by landscape painting, layer "vibrant and dissonant colors built through the structural qualities of paint..." cutting, flipping and sculpting... "the material to evoke the power of the natural world." Recent Work by Leslie Wayne is on view at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art in Charleston, SC through March 12, 2011.
