Born in 1950 in Wilmington, North Carolina, Lindsey Leavell spent her formative years in Ludington, Michigan. She graduated with a B. A. in Communications from Central Michigan University in 1972 and began working in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles, CA in 1973. Leavell moved to Colorado in 1978 with her husband, Pete, and began raising a family. In 1987 she completed 4 additional years study in painting at the University of Colorado, Department of Fine Arts. Leavell's work is collected throughout the United States and can be seen on greeting cards, magazine and book covers, and the album covers of Peter Kater and R. Carlos Nakai.
This work
is quite simply about
the use of shape, color, and paint
to create something with which the viewer responds.
Visually, I translate a composition
into a series of basic outlines,
and use these as frames to hold color.
The paint is overlaid in thin layers
to create depth and luminosity.
When painting figures,
I generally keep them faceless,
so that their expression is created
through posture, and they have a
universality, rather than individuality.
It’s my hope
that within these works
you will find
an unexpected view of nature,
and the human qualities of humility and grace.
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Artist's Background
I grew up in a small town on the shores of Lake Michigan during the 1950’s. My memories of beautiful beaches, sunsets, trees, and long winters are rich in mid-western flavor and Norman Rockwell imagery.
My parents, dyed-in-the –wool southerners, always viewed their time in Michigan as that of being in a foreign country. Every summer they packed up their daughters and took us “home” to the South, Wilmington, North Carolina. There the water was “Salt”, the trees “Magnolia” , the moss “Spanish”, and the best barbecue was Mr. Skinner’s. Life was a two-sided coin but a wonderful blending of cultures.
Graduating from college with a B. A. in communications, I migrated to Los Angeles in 1973 and began working in the entertainment industry. There I met my husband, a film-maker at the time, whose appreciation for art and art history educated and inspired me and I began this unending passion for painting.
The reoccurring female shapes in my work originated from a trip to the Far East in 1983. While traveling in southern Nepal we were watching a polo match being played on elephants. The playing field (which doubled as the airport runway) was packed with locals carrying old British umbrellas to ward off the sun.
One group of women, covered head to foot by shawls, sat along the sideline with their children. The shapes and shadows created by their figures, the umbrella, and their shawls, were spare and intriguing. I continually include them in my work.
Conceivably my use of bright colors and stark shapes may be a result of coming of age in the 60’s when kaleidoscopic art and pushing the limits of color was the norm. However, most influential to my work were the years of studying the paintings of pared down painters like Milton Avery and Mark Rothko. These painters’ interpretations of the visual world left me with a passion for paint, for pushing color, and for experimenting with images beyond the bounds of the realistic.
~ Lindsey Leavell
