Lesley Vance

For Lesley Vance (b. 1977, Milwaukee), each painting becomes a means to discover an invented image that, in the end, has the presence of fact. Her abstractions are filled with light and shadow; complex spatial arrangements; the familiar, if ultimately mysterious, presence of physical objects (she has cited sculpture and ceramics as important influences); and most of all, the material reality of paint itself. She transforms improvised marks into pictorial bodies with discernible weight, creating images that conjure both surrealist and abstract expressionist forbears. Gestures that occur quickly, without premeditation, are patiently given the opportunity to solidify as complete ideas. This process speaks to the mind’s capacity to subsequently make sense of sudden events, as well as the ways in which memories—products of the present as much as the past—are molded from moment to moment.