Growing up in the Midwest, Leah’s grandmother would take her to museums and always encouraged her to take full command of her creativity. “I’ve always love making things,” says Leah. In high school, her art teacher wouldn’t write her college letter of recommendation unless she studied Art. “I feel so lucky that I was able to find my passion at such an early age and spend my life cultivating my desire to create. It was and is because of the tremendous support of others that I knew being an artist was even a possibility.” Working across many media, the artist works with acrylic, pumice stone, molding paste, fiber paste, canvas, aluminum panel, insulation board, upholstery foam, and shredded tire to make what she terms “Sculptural paintings.” Working out of an old, haunted church in the Upper Hudson Valley (Hillsdale, NY) during the week, Guadagnoli works as a Development and Communications Associate at the Bogliasco Foundation in NYC. “Being an artist, though, is much more than just being in the studio,” she confides. Having a penchant for making work late into the night, she often feels exhausted or turns into “a total anti-social vampire.” Her advice? Get out of the studio and support your fellow community of artists. “Do studio visits, see art, go to openings, give work to benefits, teach, mentor, be inclusive. If you are alone and surrounded by those four walls all day, then what’s the point?” says Leah, advocating for balance in all aspects of art-making and life. Her show at Asya Geisberg gallery, “Soft Violence,” an exhibition of sculptural paintings, is up through February 16th. Inspired initially by the logo of a local diner, musing on the way in which the Greek diner might “masquerade as High Art,” the works included in “Soft Violence” approach a more neutral form of design. Abstracted gender binaries as hard lines softened by color gradients, pastel candy colors and plush curves fuel the play of opposites. Her pieces approach functionality but fail, what the show’s press release describes as “thwarting connection” and an “emasculating pejorative,” against the male-power structure.
See Leah Guadagnoli, “Soft Violence”
Asya Geisberg Gallery
537B West 23rd Street