virginia leonard
PAULNACHE
virginia leonard Pain Chart I don’t call it a Spoiled Foot, even though it’s a good summary. I call it a rotten foot. Picked up and then discarded, flying like Aphrodite and then bashed into the brick wall. I come limping home relishing in my attention. I am pain intolerant. But I am not her, I am the blacksmith potter waging war in the backwaters. Trying my hand at this and that. Turning, turning, hiding my limp behind the iron and fire. I am only Vulcan, only Vulcan. My works are self-portraits that address my bodily scarring and chronic pain. Chronic pain has no biological value, modern medicine cannot reliably treat chronic pain, it lacks both language and voice. The language of my clay making is my attempt to rid my body of trauma and reduce my level of chronic pain.
List of works Large works: «Grim and Daring», 2018, Clay and lustre, 85 × 38 × 38cm, $12500 «Noisy Knees», 2018, Clay, lustre and resin, 89 × 26 × 26cm, $9500 «Peeled and Re-glued», 2018, Clay, lustre, resin and concrete, 76 × 36 × 36cm, $9500 «Beautiful and Lumpy», 2018, Clay, lustre, resin and concrete, 100 × 31 × 31cm, $9500 «This Is My Story», 2018, Clay, lustre and resin, 98 × 34 × 34cm, $9500 «One Foot», 2018, Clay, lustre and resin, 101 × 46 × 46cm, $9500 Mid scale works: «The Prize», 2018, Clay, lustre and resin, 50 × 45 × 45cm, $7500 «3 Feet Please», 2018, Clay, lustre, resin and concrete, 51 × 48 × 48cm, $6500 Small works: «Pretty As A Peach 1–5», 2018, Clay, lustre and resin, sizes vary approx. 25 × 35 × 25cm $3500 ea.
Biography Virginia Leonard (b.1965 Auckland, New Zealand) graduated with a Master of Fine Arts from Whitecliffe College of Arts & Design in 2001. Winner of the Molly Morpeth Canady Art Award, Whakatane (2012) and winner of the Walker and Hall Waiheke Art Award, Waiheke Art Gallery, Waiheke (2011). Recent exhibitions include Auckland Art Fair, PAULNACHE, The Cloud, Auckland; miart, Erastudio Apartment Gallery, Milan, Italy; Collective Design Fair, Mindy Solomon Gallery, New York, US; EXODUS, The Vivian, Matakana; Solo installation at artgenève, Geneva, Switzerland; (2018), Installation Contemporary curated by Chief Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia Rachel Kent and Assistant Curator Megan Robinson for Sydney Contemporary Art Fair; Christmas Time Nurses, PAULNACHE, Gisborne NZ; (2017), Spring1883, The Windsor Hotel, Melbourne AUS; HANDBUILT made in clay, Two Rooms, Auckland, New Zealand; (2016), Virginia won the Merit Award at the Portage Ceramic Awards, Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery, Auckland; (2015), The Effects of Crack, Objectspace, Auckland (2014). Leonard is a consistent Finalist in the Wallace Art Awards and was a Finalist in the National Contemporary Art Award, Waikato Museum. She was also the recipient of the Ceramic residency at Guldagergaard, Denmark (July 2017); and was curated into a group exhibition at Galerie Wolfsen, Aalborg, Denmark (August 2016). Virginia's focus is working with clay and her work is a response to the broken parts of her body. She currently lives and works in Matakana. Virginia Leonard is represented by PAULNACHE.
PAULNACHE Upstairs 89 Grey Street Gisborne 4010 New Zealand now@paulnache.com +64 274 736 245 Matthew Nache Director
Melbourne Art Fair Melbourne Art Fair https://melbourneartfair.com.au Virginia Leonard http://virginialeonard.co.nz PAULNACHE http://www.paulnache.com
Acknowledgements Text: © the artist, courtesy PAULNACHE Photography: Oliver King Project: Pain Chart, Melbourne Cover: «One Foot» Spread: «Peeled and Re-glued», «Grim and Daring» Back: «Noisy Knees»