Artist Spotlight Series: Leslie Wayne

October 5, 2015

Artist Spotlight Series: Leslie Wayne

Art, Artist, Artist Spotlight Series, Leslie Wayne, New York Artist

I am thrilled to introduce you to the my latest artist extraordinaire in my Artist Spotlight Series. I am particularly drawn to her work for its tactile quality that is reminicent of textiles and her use of bold color.

Leslie Wayne

New York, New York

What is your training?

I studied painting at the University of California, Santa Barbara’s College of Creative Studies for two years as an undergraduate. I left during my Junior year to go live in Paris where I studied French and painting, then ended up traveling, lived in Israel for 5 years, and finally moved to New York where I finished my BFA in Sculpture from Parsons School of Design.

What inspires you and your designs?

Patterns in nature, patterns in textile designs, architectural motifs, decorative ceramics.

What is your favorite piece?

That’s like asking a mother to choose her favorite child. I don’t really have a favorite, but this is a painting from my “One Big Love” series that I quite love.

How has your area influenced your work?

Since I began as a landscape painter in California, I found that my relationship to nature changed and became more pronounced when I moved to New York City. Nature is no longer something I observe and depict in the traditional sense. Now I draw on my memories of growing up in Southern California – the desert landscapes, the earthquakes, the Pacific Ocean – to offer an analogous experience of being in nature, and to feel the forces that shape those forms and colors, like compression, subduction, the pounding of ocean waves, the movement of tectonic plates, etc.

What is your favorite restaurant in (your city)?

There are too many great places to choose a single favorite. But I do love a little Turkish place in our neighborhood called Hanci.