Leslie Glenn Damhus
Leslie Glenn Damhus is a painter who combines the historical and the contemporary, weaving modern-day cultural references through Renaissance imagery. Her process begins by gathering images and ideas, appropriating and reimagining them.
Creating collages in her computer she makes transfer prints that are impressed onto wooden panels. The technique leaves anomalies; textures and faded images on the surface mimicking deteriorating frescoes. With small brushes and attention to details, she then begins the oil painting. The panels are filled with playful symbolism; double meanings and curious animals.
Glenn Damhus’ main fascination is with the fusing of two contrasting ideas, from referencing Renaissance paintings juxtaposed against contemporary art, beauty against ugliness, the serious with the playful, or searching for perfection whilst permitting serendipity, and always attempting to find a balance between old and new.
Glenn Damhus graduated from the University of the West of England, Bristol with an Honours Degree in Fine Arts.
Works
The Marian Portraits
My Marian Portraits combine my fascination with Renaissance imagery and it’s symbolism juxtaposed against contemporary culture references, my childhood impressions and contrasting ideas. Engaging the viewer I use trigger points; such as animals, contemporary fabrics and objects. My inspiration comes from many directions; my mother’s love of fabrics, being mentored at an early age by a well established animal illustrator, the history of painting, art books and the internet. Sometimes just being aware of the little treasures that are right in front of you in the every day can prove the best source for invoking new ideas. On one hand, I’m trying to express ideas that are important to me: a sense of sacredness, my passion for how women are portrayed in historical paintings, and on the other hand I’m trying to communicate some relief from the everyday complexities of life for others to grab a moment of contemplation, and hopefully a smile.
Hands
My Hands series began by having a conversation with a fellow artist. We were discussing ideas for smaller works and she expressed how she loved the hands in my paintings. It inspired me to explore this idea further focusing on how everyday objects placed within Renaissance style poses can create evocative, humorous and playful scenarios. I plan to continue this theme in a new series of paintings exploring the loss of loved ones and the importance of preserving their lives by making art from their objects and images that they’ve left behind.
The Vanishing
I began a small series of paintings at the end of last year exploring the extinction of unusual and often overlooked endangered animals. Sitting alongside my archetypal style portraits of women, draped in ornately painted garments appropriated from Renaissance paintings are the flowers, fauna and creatures of our wounded world. Both displaying their beauty and vulnerability, I’d like these paintings to create awareness and wonderment in equal measure. I hope to return to this series creating up to nine to twelve works.