About Sharon Lesley

   Sharon Lesley is a Multidisciplinary Artist based in Melbourne and Perth:  

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• After many years working as a self-taught visual artist  is formalising her qualifications at RMIT university.

 

• Completes commissions along with her studies in her home studio, and occasionally conducts private small group classes and workshops.

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• Ranges in artwork style from classic representational pieces to expressionism and abstraction. 

 

• Has recently embraced Postmodern materials and approaches to depict contemporary narratives and  current events.  

 

• Embraces a broad diversity in her artistic range, and rises to the challenge of using whatever materials are at hand to produce creative works, including ephemeral projects - this is an extension of her personal ethos that art is for everybody.  

 

• Of the belief that art can be therapeutic and healing in nature, and can help us access emotional responses for which visual expression surpasses the use of spoken language.

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                                   Themes common to Sharon’s work include:   

                 

 Narrative - The beauty of imperfection - Momento Mori / Remembrance /   Memorial works - Identity - Defining events - Re-defining events - The Everyday   - Our symbiotic relationship with nature - Text - Capturing the beauty of the   moment - Shadows and reflections - Recycling and detritus / Conservation

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                                                            Experience

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Portraiture is of particular interest for Sharon, and while private commissions provide her usual subjects, she entered the Archibald Prize in 2016 with a portrait of Winthrop Professor Ted Snell, which you will find in her Portraiture gallery entitled "Winthrop Professor Ted Snell - In Situ".

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Sharon entered the Wynne Prize the following year with a landscape depiction of the towering red tingle trees from the ancient forest known as The Valley of The Giants in Walpole, Western Australia.  The work is titled "A Walk With The Giants"  and is located in her Paintings gallery.  This also includes a playful self-portrait, as the person depicted on the overhead walkway is Sharon.

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One of Sharon’s memorial works, “Postcards To Lindt”, created to honour of the victims and survivors of the terrorist attack in 2014 at Martin Place, Sydney, was graciously accepted as a donation to Lindt & Sprüngli (Australia) Pty Ltd in 2019.  This work is found in her Mixed Media / Collage gallery.

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A very special memorial work to her beloved mother, who passed away in August 2001, is entitled "A heArtful of Robin", and rests in her Mixed Media / Collage gallery.

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Sharon was the third prize winner in the Mental Health Foundation Australia community art award in October 2020 for her still life ink drawing "Keep Swimming", located in her Drawing gallery.

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An artwork entitled "Yarra-Yarra" is currently exhibited in an online exhibition for the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry Australia (2021) themed around sustainability and the environment, and found in her Drawing Gallery.

                                                           

Inspirational Influences

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    Eileen Agar - Mirka Mora - Liza Lou - Yeesookyung - Mirjam Gielen - Ben Quilty - Alpay Efe - Kiata Mason - Donal Molloy-Drum -  Gustav Klimt - Claude Monet - Alex Kyriakacis - Janine Antoni - Andy Goldsworthy

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