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Sarah Leon paints and illustrates subjects of nature, found objects, patterns and creatures. An underlying theme of seclusion and reflection runs through her landscape paintings. Her flexible skill can be seen in her works on paper where she delicately renders found objects or creates fanciful characters. She paints and draws in several mediums and prefers working from life. |
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Sarah Leon’s shows with the Mass Audubon Society, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the SF Bay Area Museum were some of her most successful. Recently Sarah Leon worked with the Arizona Girl Scouts where she used still life to illustrate leadership programs for girls. Sarah Leon partnered with the Mystic Watershed Collaborative and Friends of Alewife in a show for which she painted a series of 20 plein-air landscapes of endangered urban wild to raise awareness and funds for preservation. Sarah Leon resides in Watertown, MA. |
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Stones, feet, and speaking art A brilliant painting of a large stone hangs on the wall. The artist stands beside his work and mumbles about the fragility of life and his painting technique shyly because the real reason why he painted the stone is even more awkward. He was able to achieve the stone painting because it reminded him of his dad’s feet. One of the artist’s fond childhood memories is of his dad coming home from work. The artist’s father would blow out a heavy sigh as he yanked off his boots. The artist would stare at his father’s thick feet, mangled with calluses. His dad is just like his feet, solid and steady. Now he walks with a cane. The artist connects the stone and his dad in his head. He paints it wishing his dad was as strong and permanent as a granite boulder. Loaded motivation sharpens the artist’s observation. He gives it all to the stone painting. He walks into the inner world of art where ephemeral ideas form into concrete images. Little children do this easily as they sing stories with crayons and paper. The finished stone painting doesn’t resemble an old man’s feet any more than a child’s red and pink scribbles look like a pig dancing with dragons. Yet the artist’s process created an emotional undertow in the painting which draws in the viewer. The tension opened up the painter’s hands to use stronger brushwork, better color, wise composition and that elusive spark crackles. Once the painting is done, it stands alone without the artist. The stone has a poetic meaning, of an object ignoring motion, of reassuring timelessness, of reliable strength. No longer is it only about the artist’s motivations. The stone painting emerges a work of art which speaks to a stranger in a powerful wordless language. This process is why he paints; this communication is why the work good and this intimacy is why it is so hard to talk about it. Paintings need their mystery, they need time to be observed, and they need to live on walls away from their makers because their meaning is independent of the process. Daydreamers, loners, philosophers, and odd souls make the best painters. Art is a solitary interpretation of the world, but the beauty is that a painting or a dance or a story doesn’t need age rage sex or class to connect profoundly to another. We are linked in the arts which elevate transform our common world into something precious. |
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