National Tell a Story Day

With narrative art such as mine, we are reminded that there is more than one way to tell a story.  Some are told with words, others with sounds, body movement, or images.

My last show was entitled “Story Without a Plot”, which demonstrates how I am driven to tell stories with my art, even if it is implied and not explained with words. 

©lesliepetersonsapp Lace 40x40 Collage, acrylic on panel.

 Our imagination is part of what makes our lives have richness and meaning. The figures in my pictures feel like ghosts performing tableaus and delivering messages from our own subconscious.

©lesliepetersonsapp Anticipate 16x20 Collage on panel

I use the elements of design to support a narrative. Deep focus emphasizes the distance between people, even in a closed room. Dramatic value changes create mood and mystery. Silhouettes and profiles obscure the identity of the characters and create an even larger screen for us to project our stories on.

©lesliepetersonsapp Search 48x40 Collage and Acrylic on panel.

 The spaces I depict feature mirrors, doors, windows, apertures through which we witness dramas unfolding, furthering our engagement with the piece. Populated with femme and homme fatales, they evoke photographs a private detective might take through a window, espying people in some forbidden situation. The mystery of what we see compels us to wonder and reflect.
 

Everything Old is New Again

©lesliepetersonsapp Ambivalence

My Film Noir series has dark, rich colors, high drama, and often integrates collage for pop and panache.

But those of you who have followed my art for a while know that it wasn’t always that way. 

For many years I did work in a very different style, based on vintage snapshots of ordinary people. This body of work evokes feelings of wistful nostalgia. 

©lesliepetersonsapp You Are the Only One 24x36 Acrylic on panel

They are boldly drawn with thin layers of paint over visible wood grain. It was a popular and satisfying method that worked for me for years before I felt the need to evolve and change. 

©lesliepetersonsapp Reservoir 36x24 Acrylic on panel

Many of these pieces are still available! In this vein, I’ve done an entire reorganization of my website. I have included a page of available artworks in this previous style.
 
The website is organized into three pages under Portfolio. Each image on each page has a clear indication of where to inquire about the piece, and if you feel so moved, how to buy it.

visit www.lesliepetersonsapp.com to see all my work, current and otherwise!

Another way to explore this earlier style is to visit previous blogposts, especially the years 2013 and before.  Look at the Archive section on the right side of this page to investigate.

An Artist Who Inspires- Suzanne Valadon

On my social media I often share posts about other artists who inspire me. I have decided to start a blog post series based on the same thing. Here is the first installment.

An Artist Who Inspires- Suzanne Valadon

Suzanne Valadon has what might be the coolest biography anyone could hope for.
She was born named Marie-Clémentine Valadon in Montmartre district of Paris. 

What is Montmartre? The site of the famous Moulin Rouge, and an incubator of art and culture. A partial list of artists who hung out there over the years include Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas, van Gogh, Raoul Dufy, Picasso, Les Nabis (Vuillard, Bonnard), Matisse, André Derain, and later Langston Hughes, Josephine Baker, and Django Reinhardt.
And yes, she was born there! 

She was very poor, and her father is unknown. She quit school at age 11 and by age 15 was an acrobat at the famous Cirque Fernando. An acrobat!

Paintings of the Cirque by Toulouse-Lautrec and Degas

But very soon after she started, she fell from a Trapeze, injuring her back, and that was the end of that. 

She started modeling for artists, such as Puvis de Chavannes, Renoir, and Toulouse-Lautrec. During this time, she gained the nickname "Suzanne" after the biblical story of Susanna and the Elders (a story where dirty old men spy on a naked young woman). 

Paintings of Suzanne Valadon by Toulouse-Lautrec

Valadon by Renoir- him, being Renoir, may have idealized her just a bit.

 While observing her artist employers, she began to teach herself how to draw, and then paint. Degas, in particular, encouraged her and bought her work. She became an accomplished and respected artist. 

Etude de Chat by Suzanne Valadon

Valadon’s work seems to be mostly post-impressionism, but she really stood out because of the subjects she was willing to handle. 

Most female painters at that time, such as Cassatt and Morisot confined themselves to landscape, still life, and domestic scenes involving children and women. Valadon painted all these subjects, as well...  but she also did nudes.

Reclining Nude by Suzanne Valadon

 Nudes nudes nudes. She did nude women, but did not idealize their bodies.

The Blue Room by Suzanne Valadon

She did self portraits and recorded her aging face.

Self portraits by Suzanne Valadon

 She drew her son as he bathed or slept.

My Son Utrillo by Suzanne Valadon

 And she painted nude men, unheard of at that time, and one of the first and few examples of a man being seen through the “female gaze”.

Casting the Net by Valadon- model is her husband Andre Utter

At 18, Valadon had a son who also became a famous painter, Maurice Utrillo. She married twice, once to a wealthy banker, and then to a man 21 years younger than she, Andre Utter. She died of a stroke in 1938 at age 72.
To top off the world’s coolest biography, she also has a crater on Venus named after her. And an asteroid.
How cool is that?

Block

A classic "hard boiled" scene.

2019 Leslie Peterson Sapp Block II 38x48

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. 

2019 Leslie Peterson Sapp Block 24x32

 

 

 

Femme Fatale: protofeminist or just a very naughty girl?

March is Women's History month. During this time I am contemplating my position as a female artist, creating narrative art.

2019 Leslie Peterson Sapp Many a Moon

Part of the enduring fascination we have with noir is the inclusion of powerful female characters. The zenith of film noir was from the 1930’s-1950’s a time of extraordinary change for women, particularly during WWII, when they took up jobs vacated by men who were off at war. The war, plus the changing role of women in society, created nationwide anxiety, much like the anxiety evidenced in our own times.

However, with some exceptions, the classic femme fatale of those times was not a feminist figure. She is not a fully developed character in her own right, but tends to act as a foil for a male character's unfolding drama. Many people think she is a protofeminist, whose disruptive presence and self-serving motivations were a meaningful precursor to the feminist movement.

A terrific article in Crime Reads "The Evolution of The Femme Fatale in Film Noir", Halley Sutton describes the evolution of the femme fatale from the heyday of film noir to the neo noir of today. Her use of her sexual power to get what she wants is still intact, but her personhood is affirmed and sometimes she is even the primary character! Imagine that!

2020 Leslie Peterson Sapp Gamp

In my own work I am wrestling with the issues of stereotypes- am I perpetuating them? Does the work I produce actually uphold my values? My use of nostalgia and depictions of a by-gone era seems to give me license to stay in my comfort zones and repeatedly depict figures that are young, slender, and largely white.
The only answer I have for that is that I keep trying. I keep questioning myself, educating myself and seeing how I can stretch my comfort zones.
What new dramas unfold?