Leigh Anne Lester

Visual Arts : Illustrator , Painter , Sculptor ; hand paper cutting

Leigh Anne Lester
Artist Bio

Leigh Anne Lester’s work addresses the place between the genesis of genetic modification and its aftereffects. Her drawings are layers of semi-transparent drafting film with a historical botanical drawn on each layer. The transparency of the drafting film allows the line of each botanical to optically blend with the next layer. Elements of each of the plants mix and tangle their visual attributes intermingling disparate species of flora. Lester is currently working in her studio doing drawings and hand cut drafting film that source from her previous work, seeing them as parent plants that create future generations. For the drawings, the genesis plants are put through a program that distills the imagery into multi-color cells that reference the former plant images. These floating cells are then intermingled visually with a graphite drawing of a separate distorted offspring plant with its color drained, implying a cellular, morphological struggle for resolution. The hand cut drafting film uses the same idea of sourcing from her own work, distorting through computer manipulation and then creating a new vaguely identifiable offspring, quietly installed and sprawled across it’s installation space.

Leigh Anne Lester
Artist Bio

Lester’s work has been exhibited throughout the United States. Her solo exhibitions include the McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, grayDUCK Gallery, Austin; Houston Art Alliance; Lawndale Art Center, Houston; McKinney Avenue Contemporary, Dallas; Conduit Gallery, Dallas; Artpace, San Antonio; Institute of Texan Cultures, San Antonio; Southwest School of Art, San Antonio and the International Museum of Surgical Science, Chicago. Her works have been featured in shows at the Muriel Guepin Gallery, NYC; Centro Cultural Borders, Mexico City, MX; Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI; Karen Imperial Gallery, San Francisco, CA; Nicholaysen Art Museum, Casper, WY; LIMN Gallery, San Francisco and McNay Museum, San Antonio, TX. She was an artist in residence at Kunstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin Germany. She is the recipient of awards including the 2011 Hunting Prize, 2007 Artist Foundation of San Antonio and a participant of the 2008 Creative Capital, Professional Development Program. Her work is in the permanent collections of Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, McNay Art Museum, University of Texas San Antonio.

Lester was born in Shreveport, Louisiana. In 1989 she moved to San Antonio and in 1993 she received her BFA in Painting from University of Texas in San Antonio. Once she graduated she set up studio in the Blue Star Arts Complex and since has co-founded and co-curated the cactus bra SPACE that closed in 2012 after 19 years of operation.

View less

Resume (PDF)

Leigh Anne Lester CV 2022

Leigh Anne Lester Artist Statement

MORE ABOUT THIS ARTIST

Artist Style: Visual Art : Abstract , Conceptual , Contemporary , Environmental , Formalism , Illustrative , Nature/Wildlife ; Botanical, Science inspired

Artist Medium: Acrylic ; Colored Pencil ; Drawing Media ; Plastic ; Vinyl ; Watercolor ; Wood ; Drafting Film

Artist Statement of Work

Tell us about your work (style, approach, philosophy, subject and/or theme):

Leigh Anne Lester

Artist Statement

My work addresses the place between the genesis of genetic modification and its possible aftereffects. Genetic modification offers humans the resources and means to change the composition of species from the microscopic level to the macroscopic system; to change the composition of a species by deleting or adding an attribute to suit our own desires. But, what is disposable? Too often we don’t have a clear view of what the ramifications will be for a plant that has been altered or the species that depend upon it for survival. The new outcome of this potentiality can capsize a natural balance or create a new species for that balance. This possibility is as exciting as it is frightening. There is beauty in the unknown.

Beauty is an important tool in my work to lure and entice the viewer. Through the natural appeal of the plants, the graceful line of the drawings, the luminosity of the vinyl and drafting film, the viewer is asked to consider the paradox that beauty is really a balance of order/control with abandon/uncertainty.

In my drawings, I utilize historical botanicals on layers of semi-transparent drafting film with a botanical drawn on each layer. The transparency of the drafting film allows the line of each image to optically blend with the next layer, generating a flux between the different components of each of the individual plants. Elements of each of the species mix and tangle their visual attributes intermingling disparate species of flora much like a palimpsest with divergent layers and characteristics perceptible beneath the surface. I am currently sourcing from these drawings, seeing them as parent plants that create future generations. The genesis plants are put through a program that distills the imagery into color cells that vaguely reference the former plant images. These floating cells are then intermingled visually with a graphite drawing of a separate distorted color drained offspring plant, implying a cellular, morphological struggle for resolution. A new development in the work is to cross-reference my hand cut drafting film sculptures with the color cells and graphite drawings to push the visual struggle for recognition and resolution further from its beginnings. Creating through the new generations, a visual vocabulary that can be discovered through all of the previous and future pieces, having a visually perceptible tether to the genesis plants while further disarranging the perceptible image.

With this new “Frankenstein“ flora I bring into play a sense of the possible, whether good or bad. I want viewers to think of it as a 21st Century Botanical that is a premonition of the consequences of genetic modification and its effect on the future of the environment.