Laurie Leehane – Timelines

Timelines is an exhibition of selected paintings by Laurie Leehane that contain the primary concerns that have motivated her work since joining the gallery ten years ago. These fundamental elements, including light, shadow and nostalgia help to direct a narrative within her images that can best be described as timeless.

The timeless quality in the artist’s work is not unlike the feeling you experience from an Edward Hopper painting. Robert Henri, an instructor to Hopper, advised his students that it isn’t the subject that counts but what you feel about it. It is in this sentence that we find the foundation of Leehane’s practice.

Laurie Leehane states, “It is essential to my work for me to have an emotional reaction to a situation or place. I am motivated to develop a painting if I am inspired by light, shadow, nostalgia and memory. My work generally contains a narrative of abandonment, mystery and longing. It isn’t what is said that holds my attention but what is not said. I believe there is a magical time for everything whether it is the time of day when the light strikes the wharves and sheds I investigate or when the landscape is speaking in dreams. Everyone and everything has a moment”.