Sarah Leslie’s paintings are imbued with a subtle luminosity of colour which combines with an engaging sense of form to entice the eye into realms of gentle pleasure. Her colours are light and bright, expressing an optimism picked up in the rhythmic interplay of organic shapes, circles and ovoids. Beguiled by the initial impression of simplicity, transparent forms and overlapping colours provide a visual complexity to captivate the eye and mind, and set them on their journey of enquiry. In Botanic Interplay I, the initial concept maintains the flatness of the picture plane, then overlaid by new forms and colours to create the illusion of depth. Paint raining down the surfaces of her paintings increases both their flatness and the sense of the third dimension, creating an ambiguous sense of space. Her inspiration was the flow of water, captured by light, at the Mataranka Falls in the Northern Territory, translated into Rain Scape II. The running paint adds a sense of movement to works otherwise transfixed by stillness, again playing lightly with visual paradoxes.

Botanic forms, of branches, leaves and berries, are derived from childhood memories of printed fabrics from the 1960s and contemporary experiences, Red/Yellow Berries having its genesis in the Christmas gift of a beach towel with similar motif. Leslie, however, is equally in the thrall of nature, the colours of Red/Yellow Berries evoking autumn while Dusk Botanic II flirts with summer warmth and a setting sun. The transience of the seasons and atmospheric moments are caught in her web, as the transparent veils of cool colour in Play of Light imitate, as Leslie describes it, ‘the play of natural light on the botanic forms.’
The idea is developed differently in the related work, Play of Light – Evening, the usual matt surface giving way to the glossy, super smooth, the warm colours shot through with metallic gold paint. In these and other paintings, the momentary is held within the structure of her design. A different path is taken in The Circle of Nature, the rings being the lines of the annual growth of trees, contrasted with the numbers and letters of logging marks. It is the only political statement in the exhibition, arising from her own deep interests and a shared contemporary concern.

Design is the strongest element in her work, as to be expected, for Leslie graduated from Monash University in graphic design. While it permeates, it does not dominate her painterly exploration of the complexities of illusionistic space, rhythmic movement, and the visual delight of colour and texture. For a first solo show Sarah Leslie’s work has much to offer in maturity of style combined with a ready command of colour and design. Though still emerging and experimenting, her paintings are full of an assurance that one associates with a more experienced painter.

 

David Thomas
Melbourne, May 2005.