Golden Legs and Other Bits
Virginia Leonard continues to create works that focus on pain and healing. Choosing a creative path to confront personal trauma, Leonard creates a world of beauty from tragedy. “My works are representations of my body. It is an ongoing dialogue I have with the realities of the voiceless- ness of chronic pain and bodily scarring and the daily need to articulate and divine a visual language to process and translate life with scarring and chronic pain.
My work holds connotations of revulsion, but it also vital, evolving and honest. I feast upon the process and change, championing the organic reality of my body, its fragility and its involvement in a world of flux. Human physicality isn’t static or closed, the classical ideal is impossible and sterile. More exciting is to understand that I inhabit a ‘body of becoming’. “
About Virginia Leonard
Virginia Leonard graduated with a MFA from Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design in 2001. Her recent projects include a solo exhibition at TwoRooms, Auckland (2018); new long-term installation, All I Want is a Face Lift, at Objectspace, Auckland (2018); Artgèneve, with Taste Contemporary, Geneva (2018); Melbourne Art Fair (2018) and Auckland Art Fair (2018), both with PAULNACHE gallery; participation in Installation Contemporary, Carriageworks, as part of Sydney Contemporary (2017); and The Effects of Crack, Objectspace (2014).
Leonard has an extensive international exhibition history. Her forthcoming exhibition, It Only Hurts When I Bend Over will open at Mindy Solomon Gallery, Miami, later this year.
In 2019, Leonard has numerous engagements, including participating in Tresor Contemporary, Basel, and Artgèneve, Geneva, Switzerland, both with Taste Contemporary Gallery. She will also exhibit and participate in the world’s largest ceramic conference, The National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts, Minnesotta, United States.
Leonard was invited to the prestigious artist residency at Guldagergaard: The Internal Ceramic Research Centre, Denmark, in 2017. She has also been invited to a residency at Glasshouse/Stonehouse, Chenaud, France in 2019. Leonard is included in a major international survey publication of contemporary sculpture to be released next year.
