The man is a reporter or a writer. His office in a rundown dockyard neighborhood that looks out
over the harbor with its docks and warehouses. A single ship is coming in.
He is alone, but in the corner you can barely make out his coat and hat, hanging
on a coatrack, which almost appears to be a person or a ghost. Is it someone he
is writing about? Investigating? Pining for? We don’t know because his back is
a blank wall.
I combined collage, drawing and painting in this one, trying
to capture the effects of moonlight on water, glinting off a glass ashtray. The
palm of his hand glows orange as if he is holding a lit match or cigarette.
Another, smaller version is also available. This one has no collage elements, and the color is slightly softer and nuanced.
A young woman is being witnessed
as she has snuck into an office at night, perusing documents on
a desk. The green glow of the desk lamp
illuminates her black jacket. Her profile and veil are silhouetted by the hall light shining
through the office door window. Windows within windows, spies spying spies, rectangles framing one another, frames
within frames.
What she
is reading, what information she is hoping to find, who is she spying on, and who is spying
on her? What will her fate be?
A youthful figure, silhouetted in front of a lace curtain, dons a tie while looking in an ornate mirror. In the mirror we see a mysterious figure. Is the scene in the mirror real, or imagined?
2020 Leslie Peterson Sapp Lace 40x40
The figure in the mirror is mysterious. In real life, the
only thing we would see reflected in the mirror is the blue curtain because of
the angle. I used artistic license so that it
may look like a person standing in the room with the young man, maybe behind him.
One person suggested that the figure in the mirror is actually a reflection of
what is the young man’s mind, or a reflection from a different time. I love
learning about what other people see in my work!
This is an unusual piece for me in that there is so much
pattern. There are times when I really crave that patterned, over all
ornamentation. I like the way it is contrasted with the clean silhouette of the young man.
This is a bitty video where I discuss the piece a bit at my opening at RiverSea Gallery. A more detailed description of the materials and techniques I used is written below.
The
curtain lace is purchased paper that I had to work very hard to preserve
as I glued
it down- it wanted to dissolve with the moisture of the medium. The blue
curtain in front is all from a roll of tracing paper I tinted with
acrylic. The wallpaper pattern
is all acrylic, utilizing a metallic and interference colors, using
a stencil I made and applying it with a stencil sponge from the craft
store. The mirror was created by finding
the mirror for sale on line, distorting it so it looked like it was in
perspective, then
I simply printed it out, cut it out and turned it over to its blank
white side,
then glued in down. The pattern reflected in the mirror is meant to look
like a
smaller version of the lace curtain. This created by cutting up a paper
lace
doily.
Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.
A supposed celebratory moment- a toast- seem to
have a tragic under current. The title refers to the large window behind them,
and the glasses they are holding, but also refers to vulnerability and
potential exposure. What is being communicated?
Her expression is enigmatic.
In this video I talk about the atypical development of this piece, the limited color scheme, and how the graphic novel artist Darwyn Cooke (of the "Parker" series fame) inspires me.
