Artist Statement
If I could choose one thing that I enjoy equally as much as making art, it would be exploring the natural environment. While walking in the woods, for example, I am never bored by the plethora of visual information that keeps changing and transforming with each season and each day. During these walks, I use photography and observational drawing to capture and store visual information. What I choose to record is often based on particular natural phenomena that interest me, such as repeated patterns and cycles, movement, competition for survival, growth, decay, harmony and discord. I am attracted to how things look but also to how they feel and behave.
Back in the studio, these observations from life inform dynamic abstractions that are composed by combining a variety of materials including cyanotype, acrylic ink, paint pens, markers and collage. Memories from nature guide the imagery while I simultaneously explore the “nature” of the materials themselves. I enjoy acrylic ink because of its tendency to change and transform on its own, much like nature, leading to surprising color combinations and textural surfaces.
Biography
Leslie Shellow was awarded the Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award for Works on Paper in 2019, as well as, 2016, 2013, and 2010. In 2015, she was selected as a Sondheim Prize semi-finalist and exhibited her most recent solo shows at Vis Arts in Rockville and the Greenbelt Community Center.
Leslie was born in Washington DC and currently resides in Baltimore, Maryland. She has exhibited in such venues as The Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, the Silber Art Gallery at Goucher College, the King Street Art Gallery at Montgomery College, the National Institute of Health and the Fraser Gallery in Bethesda, MD.
She holds an MFA in Painting from Towson University, a BFA from The Maryland Institute College of Art and a BA in Education from the Evergreen State College. Her work consists of ink drawing on paper, cut paper installation, printmaking, bookmaking and oil painting on panel.
Pulling her imagery from observations of nature, both in the visible world and through microscopes, Leslie addresses natural processes such as growth, decay and regeneration. Mold, lichen, corral, cells, viruses and bacteria are among the many natural elements that influence her work.