BILL LESLIE

Bill Leslie is a visual artist who works with video and film, object making, painting and print. His work is characterised by a hands-on, tactile approach to making, a brute presence, whether that of the thick opacity of gloss paint, plaster, or the (hum)animal consciousness of his video persona/beast/monster. A balance is sought within the work between the complimentary and contradictory, accident and orchestration, poise and collapse.

Combining imagery from Hollywood B-movies with references to Abstract Expressionism, borrowing the half-man half-beast consciousness of King Kong, and exploring the nature of the camera as handheld eye, his recent body of works draws together diverse references. His articulation of these media balance a tactile care with orchestrated loss of control. Objects, paintings and videos are not considered as autonomous constructions, but records of a bodily engagement, an indexical imprint, or the results of a process of grappling with technology and substances which want to run away from him.