CODED NARRATIVES LESLIE GIULIANI
CODED NARRATIVES LESLIE GIULIANI
“It’s purely enjoyable because it’s improvisational. It’s visual jazz, and all because of this material, which allows me to be really free with my sewing and piecing together. The wax and embroidery give the pieces a very tactile surface. Encaustic paint is waterproof, which allows the pieces to be hung without glass, like a tapestry, using tiny magnets.”
–Leslie Giuliani
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Leslie Giuliani CODED NARRATIVES Featured at the Lionheart Gallery New Exhibition opens on January 4, 2017 through February 28, 2017 A little bit funny, and perhaps a little bit scary, too. The narratives that emerge in the mixed media works of Weston, Conn., artist Leslie Giuliani are like hypnotic dream journeys undertaken against a backdrop in which every element has the power of a lost primal language. “I am always surprised by the story that results,” says the artist, whose characters, botanicals, and geometric shapes and grids alternate between algorithm-like sequencing and jaunty asymmetry. Among important influences are Louise Bourgeois’ textile works, the freeform patchwork of quilts, Philip Guston’s cartoon imagery, and Byzantine icon paintings, for their strong composition and flat space. The strong, bold works that result may be most notable for the means through which Giuliani achieves her desired end result in a new body of work that began with the question, “I want to embroider on paper. How do I do that?” Encaustiflex was the answer. It’s a microfiber material similar to paper that absorbs encaustic (hot wax) paint quickly and evenly. In the first step in her process, Giuliani uses Encaustiflex for painting and monoprinting the geometric pieces that will eventually be assembled into a finished work—but that’s only the beginning of a high-tech, digital age process. The painted or monoprinted building blocks are embellished with embroidered imagery that begins as drawings, which are then digitized and become stitch files that can be sent to the artist’s computerized sewing machine. It stitches the images onto the painted or monoprinted pieces of Encaustiflex with impressive speed and complexity. Some designs have more than 20,000 stitches and take hours to sew, and colors are determined by thread choice, including metallic. In the final step of the creative process, the artist gathers individual building blocks that suggest a dialogue with one another, and sews them together like pieces in a quilt. “It’s purely enjoyable because it’s improvisational. It’s visual jazz,” says Giuliani, who has been freed to explore the tropes of fairy tales and myths via technology that gives her the equivalent of an artist’s handmade deck of cards. “It’s all because of this material, which allows me to be really free with my sewing and piecing together,” says the artist of Encaustiflex. Giuliani has about 20 large works completed, and was making smaller ones in preparation for the exhibit at The Lionheart Gallery. “The wax and embroidery give the pieces a very tactile surface,” the artist says. “Encaustic paint is waterproof, which allows the pieces to be hung without glass, like a tapestry, using tiny magnets.”
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Giuliani’s work has been exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the U.S. She was a recipient in 2008 of an Artist Fellowship Grant for Craft from the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism and her work is included in the state of Connecticut’s permanent art collection at the Housatonic Museum of Art. She teaches encaustic painting and rug hooking and has written articles on rug hooking for Rug Hooking and Hand/Eye magazines. View CODED NARRATIVES by Leslie Giuliani at the Lionheart Gallery opening January 4, 2017 and running through February 28, 2017, Wednesday through Saturday, from 11 AM to 5 PM, and Sunday from 12 noon to 4 PM. For more information and directions to the gallery at 27 Westchester Avenue in Pound Ridge, New York, visit www.thelionheartgallery.com or call 914 764 8689.
CODED NARRATIVES LESLIE GIULIANI
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Animal Vegetable Mineral, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 45� x 32�
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Cautionary Tale, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 43” x 33”
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Enlightenment, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 48” x 33”
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Excavation, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 46” x 32”
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The Physical World, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 46” x 32”
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History of the World, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 45.5” x 32.5”
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House and Garden, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 42� x 38�
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Take Me to Your Leader, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 45” x 33”
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Traveler, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 42.5” x 29.5”
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Treasure Trove, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 44” x 33”
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Continuum, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 46” x 32”
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Dream Sequence, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 45” x 32.5”
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Life’s Little Distractions, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 44.5” x 32.5”
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Roswell, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 42” x 31”
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Survival Guide, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 44” x 33”
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What Lies Beneath, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 42” x 31”
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World of Wonders, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 45” x 32”
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A Walk in the Woods, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 11” x 14”
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Discovery, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 11” x 14”
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Life Forms, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 11” x 14”
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Snowflake, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 11” x 14”
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Survival Kit, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 11� x 14�
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The Aegean, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 11” x 14”
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Ice Floe, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 20” x 16”
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Modern Times, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 20� x 16�
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Outback, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 20” x 16”
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Road Trip, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 20” x 16”
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Underground Landscape, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 20” x 16”
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Paranormal Activity, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 24� x 18�
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Wunder Kammer, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 20” x 16”
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Geometric Biomorphic, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 18” x 18”
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Precious Objects, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 22” x 34”
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Clues, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 22” x 34”
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The Essentials, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 22� x 34�
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Future Wilderness, 2016 Encaustic Painting, Digital Embroidery and Printmaking on Encaustiflex 22� x 34�
ARTSY EDITORIAL BY DOUGLAS P. CLEMENT
House and Garden, Leslie Giuliani
House and Garden, Leslie Giuliani
History of the World, Leslie Giuliani
LIONHEART FIVE AN INTERVIEW WITH LESLIE GIULIANI
interview by gallery director susan d. grissom
Roswell, Leslie Giuliani
This catalogue was published to accompany the CODED NARRATIVES Exhibition at The Lionheart Gallery. Leslie Giuliani CODED NARRATIVES, January 2017 All images copyright of the artist. Images of the works are reproduced courtesy of the artist and The Lionheart Gallery. Curated by Susan Grissom Designed by Chelsea Walsh Press Release and Review by Douglas P. Clement All rights reserved. No part of this book may be produced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior permission in writing of the copyright holder and The Lionheart Gallery. 914 764 8689 www.thelionheartgallery.com 27 Westchester Avenue, Pound Ridge, NY 10576