ARTIST: SIERRA VAN LEEUWEN
PHOTOGRAPHY & EDIT: Rebecca Goodpasture
SIERRA VAN LEEUWEN
Kingston upon Thames, UK
EDITOR'S NOTE
When I last saw Sierra, she was a talented graduate student and studying in London. Now, she's a talented graduate and has made London her home. I hear a different message in her piece now than I did two years ago.
Many thanks to Sierra for an inspired friendship and an artistic message that's worth revisiting.
THE CATALYST: AN ASSIGNMENT
On Monday (my advisor) said we want to see something big, it’s due on Wednesday. (Sierra had previously painted small pieces.)
I did one in an hour. My first one was done November 3rd, 2015, so I just gave the date for the title. The same thing for the next one, the one that you’re talking about, Novemeber 24th, 2015.
Because I was under a tight timeframe, I had to do what I knew, as well as be challenged at the same time, to move forward. I kept working on it, but there was just a moment where I knew it was done. There was a moment, because you can’t overwork things, I think.
These are the first two if their kind.
I was mainly thinking: I need to create two big pieces, and then we’ll decide which one is going on the floor and which one is going on the wall so I can get photographed with it wearing the painting’s colors, which is an inspiration of the artist Helen Frankenthaler. The floor piece just happened to be the one that I made first and that dried first, so that’s why we put it on the floor, and the one on the wall ended up being the one that was bigger. They’re both very different, and yet with the same technique.
ON REFERRING TO THE PIECE AS "HER":
I think most things in my life I refer to as “hers”. This paining is definitely a feminine painting. A feminine, romanticism painting with nature – mainly the things I find interesting placed on a painting.
ON TEXTURE:
Being able to see texture, and to feel...for me as an artist, as a viewer, I find texture fascinating – on all things. If someone is wearing a soft sweater I want to feel it – even if I were to go to a gallery I would love to be able to feel all the paintings, but I can’t. So I like walking up to the painting, and then walking away from it and then walking back up to it to see how the texture really does play an effect on how the painting looks.
With my own painting, I would do the same. Walking up close to it and walking away from it, seeing what texture would do to it, me being able to touch my own painting, being able to feel where there’s ridges or there’s bumps or there’s different textures to create something, is fascinating, just for the feeling aspect of it and for the – when you take a step back – the visual.
With my painting, I just think it adds movement.
ON INSPIRATIONS AND INTERPRETATIONS:
I’ve always found flowers as an inspiration, so I went with that and let the texture and the paint speak for itself. The vision was a flower – but that is not the result in the interpretation of the viewer.
For me, if I paint something like this, I am using a tool of a flower to create it. The viewer is seeing the finished product while I’m seeing its entire lifespan, from the moment I come up with the idea to the moment it’s on a canvas on the wall. I saw the whole thought process; there is more depth to it because I created it. The viewer is letting it create something for the first time because they’re seeing it for the first time.
It’s almost like the painting can tell the viewer whatever it wants to tell.
People say it looks like different human figures, and some people say they can see how it was a flower. Some people say they only see color. They can see this whisper, where another flower was supposed to be.
It’s interesting to see it from far away, and then walk up to it and see it again from a closer perspective. Each square (Sierra indicates a 12 inch x 12 inch area) is completely different. My friend, he said he didn’t like it. (Sierra smiles) It was hurtful. But then he said he saw it in person, and he said it was such a different painting.
ON INTERACTION:
I want my art to speak to others – if they feel something, rather than nothing when they see my art, then that’s the goal. That’s the achievement. Because people should feel alive, because there’s so much to this world and people should feel something
I just want people to see my art and think, even just for a second.
When I showed this piece for the first time, there were guests that were looking at it and staring at it. One girl, she started to follow up this yellow brushstroke that goes alongside the left side of the painting and mimicked the motions with her hand. And I love that she felt inclined, or able to almost be a part of the painting, or in a way personify the artist.
Another girl, when I was sitting there, said “she’s wearing the same socks as the picture!” So for them to have thought about it for longer than 30 seconds was huge. It was very exciting (Sierra then reaches for the edge closest to her, running her hand along the blue brush strokes). I love it.
This will change the way I do art for the rest of my life.
"NOVEMBER 24TH, 2015"
"What I’d like to do with one of my artworks is have a notebox, so you can write to the painting what you felt, or what you experienced from it. I want my art to stand on its own, outside of my face and what I personify and how I look. But then again it’s actually sort of cool that (a guest) was able to see so quickly how my heart poured out onto that painting."
If you feel inclined, write to the painting using the notebox below.
