ARTIST STATEMENT

"My artwork is primitive in style.  By abstracting my images in this way the work becomes less literal and open to individual interpretation.  Combining many seemingly disparate images in the paintings, the viewer’s brain makes connections creating a personal narrative.   I use shapes and images that have a literal or vague universal familiarity- sometimes nightmarish, it’s true, but aren’t we all drawn in by the strange, curious and slightly dangerous?  We love creepy fairy tales, wonder what’s under the bed and what may be living deep in those woods.  I’m interested in that common, primal, human consciousness.
 
I hope to convey my enthusiastic approach to creating objects.  From childhood I have sewn my clothes, and knitted my sweaters. Now I sew quilts and knit sculpture. Hooking foot stools, chair seats and rugs in the early American tradition with hand-dyed wool fabric strips is like painting with fabric. Photography is another represented medium but without the use of a camera. I brew a light sensitive emulsion and contact print cut out objects (photograms) onto sensitized cloth.  The technique, cyanotype, is named for the distinctive blue color of the emulsion.  But, painting is my primary focus.  Specifically, encaustic painting with hot wax paint.  The paint is applied while it is in a molten state. It immediately hardens.  Depending upon the heat intensity used in the final fusing (reheating) process, surface textures are achieved.  The hardened wax can be carved like wood. Objects may be embedded in the wax, providing the opportunity to use a variety of materials in each painting.  Carved panels and cut-out pieces of various materials may be appliquéd onto the painted surfaces with nails or staples.  I scavenge old pieces of wood for my paintings because of their random colors and shapes.  These are burned, painted or left in a raw state.  I also paint gourds which I grow in my garden to create sculpture.  Combining multiple pictorial, textural, and carved panels, prints, cloth and using stitch work imagery, the larger paintings have the look of painted wooden crazy quilts.  The smaller works have the look of primitive icons and retablos."

Leslie Giuliani