Jenny Leonard Saturday Debut 'Placelessness' 12.11.11

Jenny Leonard's work is derived from experiences backpacking and the sense of physical and emotional dislocation in strange, foreign places. She is interested in the picturesque and the tourist ideal, the way the world is framed in a photograph and the need to explore, capture and conquer. In the aftermath of travel she discovers a space to contemplate these anonymous landscapes in a placeless world through painting.

Jenny indulges in the formations of simple landscapes compositions, exploring the marks she craves in the picture and the sights she pursues in travel. The paintings emerge as a kind of fantasy idyllic backdrop with the familiar among the abstract, where inventive forms compete with existing objects.

Jenny's background is in commercial art and murals, for the past 10 years she has completed commisioned work for clients worldwide including a recent mural commission for British Airways in conjunction with the winter Olympics in Vancouver and for the reception of their head office in London.

Jenny's saturday Debut held the gallery into a makeshift workshop where Jenny combined collage with painting, taking scenes from the outside world and making them into a colourful, paradise like abstract landscapes. Jenny even had her sketchbooks and journals on display for a personal touch.

"In between escaping into an A3 sketchbook to make mountainous scenes, seascapes and open horizons I could peer up at the open window onto a busy street in Notting Hill. I think it made an impression on the work, perhaps things became more vivid and picturesque to combat the hustle and bustle of the city outside."

Buy Jenny's Limited Edition Artist Book 'The Place' online here

http://www.jennyleonard.blogspot.com/

http://www.debutcontemporary.com/jenny-leonard-the-work/