Page 43 - WOWwART

Leigh Werrell’s art is a masterful blend of emotion, narrative, and experimentation. Her use of color and texture creates deeply evocative works that resonate universally. By balancing ambiguity with personal storytelling, Werrell invites viewers to connect with her art on a profound level, making her a truly remarkable contemporary artist.
Leigh Werrell’s art captivates with its emotional resonance, masterful use of color, and ability to transform the mundane into magic.
and gathering in my pre-pan-
demic work turned to a feeling
of solitude and uneasiness after
2019. In my 2022 exhibition,
my work was pervaded by a
yearning for human connection
– searching for it out of win-
dows, peeking into neighbors’
homes and the storefronts and
restaurants that used to be so
easy to enter. Happily, I have
started to incorporate a more social lifestyle into my more recent work.
Can you talk about how you use color, luminescen- ce, and translucency to evoke emotion and invite viewer interpretation?
I use color in the same way that films and television shows use filters to establish specific moods. I usually do a wash of one color that I choose intuitively to fill the panel before drafting.
The quality of tonal shifts impacts the mood of a painting. A highly contrasting detail in a painting may intonate strength or power, whereas a softer shift may show gentleness or tranquility. For example, I’m currently working on a tonally dark painting of myself nursing my child in the middle of the night, and the edges of each object and figure will be fuzzy and indeterminate. However, other work includes intense neon lights or the glare of a nighttime window, details that deliver a more frenetic and energizing experience.
Often, I think of translucency as a way to obscure a narrative, to allow the viewer to find familiarity by bringing their own interpretation to the scene. I find windows especially enticing, as they hold a separate world hostage behind silent glass panels or brightly lit signs.
What role does ambiguity play in your work, and why do you think it is essential for creating an empathetic connection with viewers?
Ambiguity draws people in and allows them to see a story that includes their own experience. Often, I use shallow tonal shifts, blurry edges, sanding, and overglazing to allow viewers to interpret what they see in their own way. My pro- cess includes taking pictures of dark places with undefinable objects. These photographs serve as starting points as I expand on what I believe to exist, using tidbits from my known world, but also creating forms which have no reality beyond the painted world. This tension creates a mystery that is enticing and emotionally stimulating, and the imprecision of this process gives my work more emotion and character.
How do three-dimensional works and classical sto- ne relief sculpture influence the way you structure
and present your scenes?
My recent papier-mâché work was inspired by work I saw in Vermont at the Bread and Puppet Theater, including some by Peter Schumann, who had taken inspiration from classical bas-re- lief sculptures to make a more raw and primitive version of them. I am most interested in the way that the medium allows for some loss of control within the making process. In 2018 I started ex- perimenting with incorporating 3D elements into my paintings by bringing objects and figures out of the surface. Color is still important to these works; however, they are often more monochro- me, to allow the sculptural components to speak for themselves. The sculpture, “Tent,” explores pandemic isolation by illustrating that there is no way in or out of the structure, and no way to reach the party inside.
In what ways do you hope your art encourages viewers to see themselves or others in new perspectives?
I believe the greatest joy one can get from a piece of art, a novel, or music is feeling seen, connecting emotionally, and finding similarities between one’s own experience and the story within the piece. I hope that by making work that speaks to my own life, my viewpoint, and what moves me, a viewer can feel a connection and a mutuality that inspires deeper contemplation of the themes and sentiments of the work. I think viewers, especially right now, need something
How do you approach balancing familiar emotions with elements of the unexpected in your pieces?
Many of my scenes may appear as everyday trivialities at first, but I find the parts that interest me and emphasize them with tone and color,
and enhance or restructure elements in order to accentuate them. For example, in 2018 I was captivated by a food truck across from the Eiffel Tower, from which was emanating a beautiful luminescence. It had a certain character that I brought out by emphasizing the eerie light and obscuring or leaving out the smaller details that took away from that brilliance.
to help them recognize the beauty held within conventionally unattractive or mundane scenes.
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