The paintings of Emily Leonard display a never-ending hunt for spaces and timelessness. “From a process perspective,” she explains, “I am always looking for a place that hints of both past memory and future awareness.” In other words, Leonard sees memory as a launching point of the past but for the future: without the future component, memory is lost. By focusing on memory, Leonard concedes her deep commitment to finding beauty in truth rather than in creating new and convenient fictions. The artist is deeply aware of the subjectivity of individual perspective and how among even people close in time and world outlook, viewpoints differ: philosophical, historical, ideological, and otherwise. Leonard’s goal of her paintings is to “define beauty as something very honest.” It is through her respect for people that she has decided to eschew any brazen moral content and seek the deeply experiential. She offers places where people can be alone with themselves. Any apparent commitment to the image of isolation is quickly redirected by its unusual intensity of appeal. Leonard’s paintings are deeply Romantic works. As subjects, her dusk and dawn are entry points to dreams or their silky exits. Her view of nature is heroic and lush. And yet it is wholly devoid of beasts or actors playing narrative roles. The heroic element is far closer to the traveler who, alone and unobserved, takes the road less traveled.
Emily Leonard received her BFA from Furman University and continued her art studies in Cortona, Italy. She has had exhibitions in Nashville, TN, Greenville, SC, Scottsdale, AZ, Portland, OR, Seattle, WA and Italy. Leonard lives and works in Nashville.
