Opening Reception: Saturday, May 7 from 5-8 pm
Little Star is a quiet and gentle ode to grief and recovery. A volleying of wants and desires, trumps and failures. This work was created one step, one small painting, one idea at a time. It was made slowly, but with haste.
When I began developing my contributions for this two-person exhibition, I was thinking of it as a stepping stone to my forthcoming solo show Honey Eyed (October 2022) which will be a multi-part installation poking at the breaking point of heterocentric pressures we often face when speaking of “love” and “forever.” You know, the bullshit they feed you for breakfast your entire life that you compare yourself, poorly, to. It’s romantic, and glorious, and totally false — right?. But what of that now? Now, as I am writing this in late March, we are at exactly two years of a global pandemic, almost two years from the murder of George Floyd, and newly four weeks into the war in Ukraine. That is not romantic or glorious, and certainly is very real. It’s a lot, and I am lucky, and I am sad. Little Star was born from the mix of all of this. It is a simple visual statement, a calendar, a marking; it’s of love, and loss, and hope.
Leslie Vigeant knows how to sweat. Based in Portland, OR, her practice is filled with artificial sky-scapes, big-box store cakes, colored lights, and spreadsheets galore. She is the Director of Marketing and Communications at Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA), Manager of the GLEAN Residency, and plays with the hierarchies of social expectations in her studio.
Leslie received her MFA in Applied Craft + Design from Oregon College of Art and Craft / Pacific Northwest College of Art, and has a BFA in 2D Studies and Painting from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Leslie has exhibited at Winnipeg Underground Film Festival, Canada; Woodbury Art Museum, UT; AIA, San Francisco, CA; Cambridge College, MA; University of Missouri, MO; Marchutz School, Aix en Provence, France; Stephanie Chefas Projects and HAP Gallery, Portland, OR. She has received grants from Portland’s Regional Art and Culture Council, Oregon Arts Commission, and UMass Arts Council. Residencies with Recology, Artspace, Penland School of Crafts. Leslie is a member of Carnation Contemporary and Board Vice President of Portland Art Museum’s Contemporary Art Council (CAC). Upcoming solo show Honey Eyed at Nightengale Gallery at Eastern Oregon University, October 2022.
@someladyvee
Visitor information: Open Saturdays & Sundays, 12 - 5 PM
Cost: Free
Venue Type: Gallery
Event Type: Exhibition
Diversity: Women/Femme
Accessibility: Emotional Support Animals Allowed