Kell Presskit July19 Lr.Pdf

BIO

I began my artistic journey as a painter and illustrator. I eventually found myself transitioning to a career as a graphic artist and I’ve been fortunate to operate my own freelance design business for over 25 years. In the last decade, I’ve been able to transition back to pursuits in fine art. While my aesthetic tendencies had not shifted significantly over the years, my medium of choice had changed quite a bit.

Leslie lives in the I was able to tap into my unique skillset as a longtime graphics Austin area with her professional to create an original technique that synthesizes the husband of over 30 artistry of both design and photography. In late 2008, I created my years, her loyal dog very first digital collage using my own photos and Adobe Creative Frida and two cats. Suite. I quickly realized that the possibilities were endless and ten years later I am still chasing that elusive vision of the perfect image.

So today, I call myself a digital artist. Of course, this means eating the words of my 20-year-old self: “I will never create art on a computer”. Let’s face it, the world has changed; the rules have changed and I can live with that.

Leslie is honored to have been included in the 2012, 2014, 2015 and 2019 People’s Gallery at Austin City Hall. She has participated in dozens of exhibits over the last couple of years, including several shows featuring digital art. She won an honorable mention in the Round Rock Arts BIG Show in 2018. She also created custom artwork that was featured on the Georgetown Arts and Cultural Guide two years in a row. She has an active exhibit schedule planned for 2019, including a solo show at the “... your art takes us in places that are like time. It feels like memories, but of something Elisabet Ney Museum for FotoATX. Currently, her works can be found hanging in various venues and juried shows around the state as well as in galleries where she is we might not actually be able to remember. Quite astonishing!” —VC represented.

2 ARTIST STATEMENT

My artwork is created using an original technique that synthesizes the artistry of design and photography. I work with natural forms to create The space between surreal environments in which my photos are assembled into the spaces reality and illusion and patterns of my designs. As the imagery interacts to create the is where the magic highlights, shadows and contours of the new image, it unfolds to deeper happens. It’s in discoveries within the composition. Because each piece may use up to that moment when a dozen photographs, there is always something new to encounter. they slide into each Mazes, passageways and mirrors captivate my surrealist sensibilities and other and produce drive the design concept of these illusionary pieces. My photography is an otherness, a captured at every opportunity and selected based on theme, location, sublime encounter. color and texture. Much of my work mixes natural elements with architectural components. I use recurring themes of water, light, and reflection. I find the shimmering images and ephemeral changes of light to be a powerful reminder of the fleeting nature of our visions.

The works are grouped into collections based on a favorite artist or song. Then each piece is named from a lyrical phrase relating to the collection theme.

My art is optimistic and celebrates beauty. The complex and layered works are meant to be visual encounters that reveal a place you might not recognize—but somehow, have been waiting to visit.

Time is on Our Side, In-Between Collection

4 lesliekell.com | [email protected] | 512.917.0104 IN-BETWEEN Growing Day by Day COLLECTION In-Between Collection

Vistas provide a vantage point that highlights the relationship of our own presence in space with the mysteries of a far-off horizon. The sensation of our unique memories and experiences layered

with possibilities of the Where We’re Going, unseen is dizzying. In-Between Collection

These images seek the shadowed realities that can not be seen until we reach the apex and look back, revealing the echoes of lifetimes playing across the topography. It’s in the space that lies in- between that we find where we belong.

Come Along, In-Between Collection

6 lesliekell.com | [email protected] | 512.917.0104 COME CLOSER See Through COLLECTION Me, Come Closer Collection

As always, my goal is to create imagery that draws you in and leaves you with a feeling of discovery. In this series I’ve used

shapes that create a I Held My unique vantage point Breath, Come Closer that allows you to Collection experience one space while peering into another.

The titles comes from “On The Way Home” by Neil Young.

Can You Feel It Now, Come Closer Collection

8 lesliekell.com | [email protected] | 512.917.0104 MYSTIC COLLECTION

I cannot deny my tendencies towards surrealism with this collection, nor my leanings towards the sublime. As with most of my work, water and light play an important role as well as the little creatures that can be discovered.

Feel the Sky, One More Dream, Mystic Collection Mystic Collection, (Artist Master)

10 lesliekell.com | [email protected] | 512.917.0104 INFINITY COLLECTION

Mazes and mirrors captivate my surrealist side and drive the design concept of these illusionary pieces. The shimmering images and ephemeral changes of light work together to create an altered vision of reality. The collection is optimistic and celebrates wonder while creating an encounter that reveals

a fresh glimpse into Paradise Waits, Infinity Collection a new world of endless possibilities.

“Working with more than a dozen layers of digital images, Austin artist Leslie Kell creates an intense feeling and a visual memory unlike any other art form with her highly expressive works.” –VV

Wings Spread Bright, Infinity Collection

12 lesliekell.com | [email protected] | 512.917.0104 CREATIVE PROCESS

“Inspiration comes in many forms. Sometimes you see it coming, like the day I stepped into a Hall of Mirrors in San Antonio”.

The creation of an image begins in the sketchbook and is developed into a line drawing. Images are selected to fill the spaces. Photos are based not only on theme, subject matter, and location, but also for color, texture, value, and design. Most of the photos for “Into the Sun” were captured in Alaska.

As the images are layered and combined into the spaces of the drawing and the process progresses, the image begins to emerge. Into the Sun, Infinity Collection (Artist Master)

14 lesliekell.com | [email protected] | 512.917.0104 ARTIST CUSTOM MASTERS PRINTS

A selection of my My images are highly images are transformed flexible and can be into “Artist Masters”. adapted to provide Each Artist Master is an unique options for original, one-of-a-kind collectors ranging from creation. An archival museum quality one-

canvas is printed and Once in a Lifetime, of-a-kind Artist Masters hand-stretched, then Mindscape Collection. to limited-edition prints Custom print on canvas. paint and textural on fine art paper to elements are added. open editions on metal,

The piece is finished Feel the Sky, canvas and more. with enhanced framing Mystic Collection Custom triptych I offer virtual hangings (custom designed for on canvas. to my collectors and each individual piece) clients so we can work to create a somewhat together to fill the space sculptural presentation. In a Place of Mirrors, Mystic just right. Collection, (Artist Master) Once a design is All of my prints are produced as an produced with archival Artist Master, it is not museum-grade materials

reproduced in the Where We’re Going, and hand signed. same way again. In-Between Collection. Custom print on canvas. All works come with a signed Certificate of Authenticity. Spring from Night, Infinity Collection, (Artist Master)

16 lesliekell.com | [email protected] | 512.917.0104 CUSTOM ART DIFFERENT WORLDS

FOTOATX

Through my unique FotoATX is a month-long technique I am able celebration showcasing to create customized Austin photographers artwork to capture in libraries, galleries, specific locations, and community centers special events and across the city. various themes for both In this solo exhibition, commercial and private presented by the collections. Elisabet Ney Museum, I also offer image I created a custom licensing of my images. triptych centerpiece that mirrors the museum’s rich history and honors the vibrant spirits that fill the space. The installation offers a view that can only be experienced by stepping into this different world.

18 lesliekell.com | [email protected] | 512.917.0104 PRESS PRESS all over creation FOLLO Link & Pin's Newest Exhibition Soars on Digital Wings Local artists offer a show that overclocks the eyes with beauty. READ BY WAYNE ALAN BRENNER, 4:45PM, TUE. AUG. 5

You know how easy it is to do so many things badly, of course: We all know that.

AUSTIN And you know that the easier a system is to operate, the LAKE AUSTIN more people will attempt to operate it; and that the more CHRONICLE people attempting to operate a system, the more LIFESTYLE mediocrity will creep into the results of that operation.

That's just human nature: Few of us give enough of a “Kell’s working the damn to put sufficient effort into available industries. “The pieces are large, muscular and And so, when technology affords more convenient sort of high-level access to formerly hardwon creative tools, more lazy energize the space around them in fools will use that technology casually, without graphic wizardry that’s expending sufficient thought or energy or time in a way that combines extravagance exploration of its parameters and possibilities. And what Paradise Paved by Leslie Kell impressive in and of comes of this is what the wannabe practitioners might with playfulness.” call "art" but which is just, well, flashy-looking pieces of shit.

itself, even when it [Note: Damn you, technology – look what you've done.] doesn’t result in – as it This is why, when some people hear the term "digital art," they might reach for their guns: It's relatively easy to create finished, polished, high-end-looking works that are nonetheless aesthetic so often does, in trash. It's like, ah, remember that stage play from A Chick And A Dude Productions several months this exhibition – in ago? Samuel D. Hunter's The Whale? Wherein Shanon Weaver wore a customized fatsuit to play the role of a dying man who weighs around 600 pounds? And it was a serious play, and it was exquisite beauty.” a harrowing situation displaying itself across the Hyde Park Theatre stage, and it would've been so easy for Weaver to, in any number of ways, to do a shitty job. And yet, watching him take on this tough role, you could see that the strength of Weaver's skill was matched by his (and his director's) simply (as if) not making any of the thousand shitty, ineffective choices he so easily could have P made. You get what I'm saying here? VOYAGE HOUSTON So when I tell you that New York-born Greta Olivas does mixed-media works composed of watercolor and drawing and collage and who-knows-what-else, you'll know that, unlike so many gambits of that combo that you might've previously suffered through the viewing of … this stuff, what Olivas has wrought, is beautiful work indeed. The sort of things – often eerie landscapes with what appear to be the ruins of castles and/or cities on the horizon – that you can stare at for a long INSPIRING time, absorbing the shapes and shades of the subtly hued scenes, contemplating their potential as settings of ancient epics or future mysteries. STORIES And when – more to the original point, here – I tell you that Leslie Kell's portion of this two-person SERIES show at Link & Pin Gallery is a display of her digital art … well, then you'll know: All the possibilities of taking the easy way out, of rendering visuals that are less than complex and compelling and, basically, stunning: Those are possibilities that Kell has no truck with. I can barely imagine the tactics of expert manipulation she's visited upon her photographic images, the multitude of cut-and-pastes and filterings and enhancements and focus-shifts she's used to modify her pictures of architecture and foliage. Kell's working the sort of high-level graphic wizardry that's impressive in and of itself, even when it doesn't result in – as it so often does, in this exhibition – in exquisite beauty. That, when framing her printed works, the artist chooses to transcend the digital and adds brass fittings and polished branches and more to complement and intensify the beauty of voyagehouston.com/ Link & Pin Art SpaceGet Y Shane and Sara Scribner: 'A each bright wonder … well, I'm just shoring up my case here: This is work created by someone who gives a damn. This is work that defines and glorifies the word "painstaking." interview/meet-leslie-kell-

And all you have to do, citizen, is find a parking space or a bike rack or a nearby bus-stop and walk leslie-kell-fine-art-austin/ on into the gallery. And that's not much effort, really, is it, in this crowded urban domain of ours? NEWS

And yet, holy shit, will that effort be rewarded.

20 lesliekell.com | [email protected] | 512.917.0104 EDUCATION Georgetown Art Hop Juried Exhibition, Georgetown Art Center AVAA Members Show • Austin Art Space • Austin, TX CV 2017 – National Juried show EAST (East Austin Studio Tour) – Real Gallery Bachelor of Science in Art, 1986, Texas A&M - Dougherty Arts Center, Austin, TX – Solo show Commerce “How Did They Do That?”, Gallery at the J – Origin Magazine Art Show – Quattro Gallery Invitational Group Show SELECTED EXHIBITIONS Mixed Media Group Show – Lost Pines Art 2014 2010 2019 Center, Bastrop, TX 2014 People’s Gallery at Austin City Hall, Austin, TX Fair Bean Coffee, Real Gallery, Austin, TX – Solo show West Austin Studio Tour Dougherty Arts Center – Free Expressions Juried Show “Floating Points” – Georgetown Art Center – Scarbrough Building Lobby, Austin – Solo show curated group show Art at the Y, Townlake YMCA, Austin, TX – Solo “Between Space & Time” - Link & Pin, Austin – 2 Person show Live Oak Art Center 2010 Juried Exhibition, Columbus, TX show “Art of Celebration” Art for the People Gallery, North Hills Gallery – Creative Arts Society Juried Show “Rhythms of Nature” Juried Exhibition, studio2gallery, Austin Austin TX – juried exhibit The Big Show – Texas State University, Round 2014 Third Coast National Juried Show, Corpus Christi, TX Rock Arts – Juried show MSC Forsyth Center Galleries, Bryan TX 2019 People’s Gallery Exhibition at Austin City Wildfire, Georgetown, TX – Solo show “Elsewhere”, North Hills Gallery, Austin, TX – 3 “For the Love of Art”, Walker’s Gallery, San Marcos, TX Hall, Austin, TX – juried exhibit “The Mirror Effect” St. David’s, Austin TX – Solo show Person Show Haven Gallery, Austin, TX 2019 Round Rock Arts Interlude, An Art Exhibit – 2014 People’s Gallery at Austin City Hall, Austin, TX juried exhibit 2016 Round Rock Arts: IMAGINE Juried Show 2009 2019 re[IMAGINE] – juried exhibit – Awarded Austin-Bergstrom International Airport – Gate Area Posters First Place, Photography Georgetown Arts and Cultural Guide 2016–17 – Central Market Cafe, Westgate – Solo show Cover art WEST Austin Studio Tour, guest at Blue Genie 2013 Live Oak Art Center 2009 Juried Exhibition, Columbus,TX Big Top Electron Salon, LACDA, Los Angeles – “Digital Diversity” Juried Open 2009, Topanga Canyon Gallery ArtList.com – People’s Choice Award “Adventure, Fantasy, & Fun”, Art for the People Invitational Group Show “Organic: Basic Inspiration” Juried Exhibition, studio2gallery Manhattan Arts Int. “Healing Power of Art” Exhibition – Juried Gallery, Austin TX – juried exhibit 2016 Art Hop Competition, Georgetown Art SNAP TO GRID: Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, L.A., CA show “Creative Currents”, Link & Pin Art Space – 3 Center, Georgetown person show Bombay Sapphire Artisan Series, semi-finalist, 2013 AVAA WEST show, Austin, TX – Invitational group show HONORS and AWARDS “From Austin With Love”, Old Bakery Consignors Art on 5th Gallery Live Oak Art Center 2013 Juried Exhibition, Columbus, TX 2019 re[IMAGINE] – juried exhibit – “I Was Learning to See” Special Exhibit – Invitational Group Show Third Coast National, K Space Contemporary, Dougherty Arts Center, Austin TX – Juried show Awarded First Place, Photography “Different Worlds”, FotoATX, Elisabet Ney Corpus Christi – National Juried show Gallery by Jeana Marino, Austin ,TX – Invitational group show Round Rock Arts BIG show – “What Have I Done?” Awarded Museum – solo exhibit “Pixels & Patina” - Link & Pin Art Space – Honorable Mention Laura Bush Community Library, Austin TX –3 2 Person show 2012 “Behind the Seen” - Kerr Arts and Cultural Dougherty Arts Center – Free Expressions Juried Show – person show 2012 People’s Gallery at Austin City Hall, Center, Kerrville – 2 Person show Awarded Best of Show Bruegger’s Bagels, Austin TX – solo exhibit Austin, TX – Juried show “Collective Dimensions: The Space Within”, Old North Hills Gallery – Creative Arts Society Juried Show – TownLake YMCA, Austin TX – solo exhibit Scarbrough Building, Austin, TX – Solo show Bakery & Emporium, Austin – 3 Person show Awarded Best of Show AVAA 35th Anniversary Show, Austin, TX – Juried show Light Space & Time Online Gallery, 5th Annual “CityScapes” Art 2018 2015 Luminaria, San Antonio, TX – performance collaboration Exhibition, Special Merit Award “Dulce Bytes”, Kerr Arts and Cultural Center, Art on the Roof, Austin TX – Invitational group show The ArtList.com People Choice Winner – March 2013 Curated Group Show 2015 People’s Gallery at Austin City Hall, Austin, TX – Juried show Summer Eclectica – Phoenix Trade Depot, Austin TX – Old Bakery Emporium Art Gallery Juried Show, Juror “Sense of Place”, Cultivate 7twelve, Waco TX, Invitational group show HONORABLE MENTION: Live Oak Art Center 2009 Juried Invitational Group Show Gallery Georgetown 2015 featured art, Arts and Culture Guide cover Exhibition, Columbus, TX “Elsewhere”, Link & Pin Art Space - June 2018 – 2011 3 Person Show The Vineyard at Florence – Solo show Featured Artist, Studio 2 gallery, Austin, TX VOLUNTEER Round Rock Arts BIG show – Awarded Light Space & Time Online Gallery, 5th Annual Vino 100, Round Rock, TX – Solo show Honorable Mention “CityScapes” Art Exhibition: – Special Merit Austin Creative Arts Society, Public Relations, 2019 Award North Hills Gallery, Austin, TX – Solo show September: D3: Electric Dreams, Austin Austin Creative Arts Society, President, 2017–2018 Bergstrom International Airport – 3 Person Show Old Bakery and Emporium Art Gallery – 2 Jung Center, Houston TX – Solo show Austin Creative Arts Society, 2012–present Person show November: D3: Pixelscapes, Gallery at Art Across the Americas - National Juried Exhibition, UT the J – 3 Person Show Third Coast National, K Space Contemporary, Corpus Christi, TX – National Juried show 22 lesliekell.com | [email protected] | 512.917.0104 CONNECT

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Til Later On, Come Closer Collection

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