ABOUT
Andrea E. Leland is an artist who resides in Petaluma, California and the US Virgin Islands. Originally from Quebec, Canada, Leland received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. For the past thirty years she has traveled throughout the Caribbean observing, participating in and documenting its culture and natural beauty, all of which has influenced her artwork. Several years ago Leland relocated to Petaluma from Chicago, Illinois and currently enjoys living in Sonoma County where the light, the nearby ocean and the flora and fauna provides a visually stimulating environment for her work.
In addition to painting and drawing, Leland has directed and produced several documentary films about culture and artistic expression in the Caribbean. Currently, she is concentrating on producing artwork. Her paintings, drawings and documentaries have been exhibited nationally and internationally and are in numerous private collections.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Using concentrated colors and working completely intuitively, I paint and draw landscapes and flora and fauna that are bold, vivid and passionate. I seek to amplify nature, employing vibrant colors and simple but sensual images. Creating monoprints allows me to play with color, form and mark making. The work is both expressionistic and accessible. The use of color and form creates a direct vehicle for my own self-expression. My work is active, packed with energy and suggestive of nature reduced to its essence.
MY PATH
I began my artistic training, at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago in the ceramics department. From there I moved into painting and an interest in self-taught outsider and indigenous art. During my MFA years, I took some time to travel to an island in the Caribbean to study the influences and resources the artists on the island drew from to make their art. A publication ensued and a lifelong interest in indigenous cultures of the Caribbean.
From writing I moved into filmmaking, a much more direct form of capturing the cultures I was observing. These observations also had a profound influence on my paintings. For the next 30+ years I was making films alternating with painting in my studio. Each film took years to produce, direct and distribute, and is a very collaborative effort. Unlike filmmaking, painting provided me with a meditative, direct way to express much of what I was seeing and feeling. After making my final film which won an EMMY, I felt it was time to leave the making of films behind and concentrate on my own work rather than filming others. I moved back into the clay studio and began to alternate between painting and ceramics.
Two very different mediums that enhance each other. I hand build pots with porcelain working intuitively with the clay in a very spontaneous manner. At times I enjoy the fragility of the porcelain and allow the clay body to reveal itself with a simple celadon glaze. Other times I enhance the pot with color, gesture and texture. When making ceramic pots, the spontaneous structure I employ allows for texture and mark making that can be seen in my mixed media monoprints and paintings.
