Leslie Reid (artist)

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Leslie Reid
Born
Leslie Mary Margaret Reid

(1947-02-08)February 8, 1947
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
NationalityCanadian
EducationQueen's University (1964-1967)
Byam Shaw School of Art (1968-1970)
Chelsea School of Art and Design
Slade School of Fine Art (1970-1971)
Known forPainting
Printmaking Drawing
Spouse(s)George Hollinworth (m. 1981)
ElectedRoyal Canadian Academy of Arts 1978
Websitelesliereid.ca

Leslie Reid RCA (born 1947)[1] is a Canadian painter and printmaker from Ottawa, Ontario, known for adding a visual and sensory experience of light to the landscape tradition of Canada. She is also an educator.

Life and work[]

Reid earned a BA degree in art history and political science from Queen's University in 1968. After graduation, she moved to London, England and proceeded to study painting and printmaking at various institutions, including the Byam Shaw School of Art (1968-1970) for her Certificate in Art and Design, the Chelsea School of Art and Design (1970-1971) where she received the H. Diploma A., and the Slade School of Fine Art (1976-1977) at which she took a postgraduate course in Printmaking.[2][3][4] While in London, she saw the Tate Gallery 1970 exhibition of Three Artists from Los Angeles[5] (Robert Irwin among them) and, along with the paintings of J. M. W. Turner and other artists such as John Constable, wanted to distill what she had seen.[6]

On her return to Canada, she examined the visual and sensory experience of light and space in her early, abstract prints and paintings, only gradually allowing figurative images in her work.[6] Reid evokes the "perceptual and psychological sensations caused by the experience of a particular place" using sites both familiar and less familiar both in Canada and abroad.[6] She uses a painting technique, refined over time, which involves projecting her photographs of places she especially likes (Calumet Island, PQ where her maternal grandparents lived was a favorite)[6][7] on canvas and following this, applying as many as 12 layers of sprayed acrylic, followed by a top layer of cold wax medium.[8][9] She often chooses subjects in landscape paintings in which "people can place themselves", seeking an effect of stillness.[10] Since 2013, she has been traveling to the Canadian and Norwegian Arctic regions, and used the emotions provoked by aerial views of glaciers, mountains, rivers – and climate change - to create new work but as before, work kindled by the experience of a particular place.[8][3] Due to her study of aerial views, she finds that the "air between aircraft and earth has become a palpable space of sensation". She also may use different media to recreate her scenes of landscape and light, and to record the effects of climate change, such as the receding ice of the Arctic.[11] She titles her ongoing overall project, Mapping Time, and it has led to several exhibitions.[3]

Reid began making her colour field silkscreen prints in 1971. In 1976, her work was included in the landmark exhibition, Some Canadian Women Artists at the National Gallery of Canada which celebrated the first International Women’s Year. In 1977, she represented Canada at the Paris Biennale.[12] Since then, she has had an active exhibition history with many solo exhibitions (see Major solo exhibitions) and group shows from coast to coast and internationally, especially of her prints, in the UK, the USA, Poland, Yugoslavia, the Netherlands, Sweden, France, and Japan, among others.[13][9] In 1978, she exhibited four of her large canvases at the National Gallery of Canada, requested to do so by the curator of contemporary art, Pierre Théberge.[14] In 1979, with four other Canadian artists she had a studio in the Cité internationale des arts, Paris.[13]

In recent years, a retrospective titled Leslie Reid: A Darkening Vision, curated by Diana Nemiroff was held at the Carleton University Art Gallery in Ottawa (2012).[15] Also in 2012, her paintings were exhibited in Builders: The Canadian Biennial at the National Gallery of Canada.[3][16] In 2016, she made a three-week Arctic tour as part of the Canadian Armed Forces Artists Program which resulted in an exhibition titled Mapping a Cold War, a multimedia production of paintings, videos and photo-mosaics that documented her trip.[17] In 2017, she accompanied a C3[18] expedition through the Northwest Passage and made videos recording two Inuit women, one a young former ranger and the other an Elder who had been relocated.[3] These videos were shown on Open Channels, Âjagemô Gallery, Canada Council 2019 and at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2020.[3] (Reid's videos are available on her website). In 2020, she received a Canada Council for the Arts, Concept to Realization Grant for Dark Ice, an exhibition postponed till 2022, in collaboration with Robert Kautuk, an Inuk photographer from the community of Clyde River, which will take place at the Ottawa Art Gallery, curated by Rebecca Basciano. Dark Ice will examine effects of vanishing ice on geographies and communities in the Arctic.[3] In 2021, Reid exhibited three installations in the 2021 Bonavista Biennale: The Tonic of Wildness.[3]

Her work has since been collected by numerous institutions in Canada and the United States, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Glenbow Museum, the Ottawa Art Gallery, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, the Winnipeg Art Gallery, the Whyte Museum, the Richard L. Nelson Gallery at the University of California (Davis), and many more.[3][12][13] In 1978, Reid was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, which gave her the Award for Excellence in the Visual Arts in 2000.[13][9] She is represented by the Galerie St-Laurent + Hill, Ottawa.

In 1972, she began teaching drawing and painting at the University of Ottawa.[3] She is now Professor Emerita in the Visual Arts Department at the University of Ottawa following her retirement as a Full Professor in the Department in 2007.[12] She lives in Ottawa.[13][9]

Major solo exhibitions[]

  • 1980 Leslie Reid: Recent paintings and prints, Canada House, London, England, catalogue introduction by Richard Simmons.[13]
  • 1980 Centre Culturel Canadien, Paris;[13]
  • 1984 Leslie Reid: Recent prints and paintings. Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, curated by Robert Swain;[3]
  • 1990-1994 Landscape into Light: Leslie Reid Paintings and Prints, 1974-1990, curated by Anna Babinska;[3][19]Arts Court, Ottawa (today the Ottawa Art Gallery)
    • 1990 Arts Court Gallery (Ottawa);
    • 1991 Richard L. Nelson Gallery, University of California, Davis;
    • 1991 Mary Porter Sesnon Gallery, Porter College, University of California, Santa Cruz;
    • 1991 Meridian Gallery, San Francisco, California;
    • 1992 Fine Arts Center, Augusta College, Augusta, Georgia;
    • 1994 Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, Ontario;
  • 1996 Surfacing, Carleton University Art Gallery, Ottawa, curated by Sandra Dyck;[20][21]
  • 2011 Leslie Reid: A Darkening Vision, retrospective exhibition Carleton University Art Gallery, Ottawa, curated by Diana Nemiroff;[3]
  • 2016 Mapping a Cold War, University of Calgary's Founders' Gallery, The Military Museums, Calgary;[17][3]

Notable works[]

Notable awards[]

Publications[]

  • 1975 The Last Closet. Make: the Magazine of Women's Art, April/May, UK
  • 2003 Afterimage: Making Art and Mothering Teens, in Mothering, Popular Culture and the Arts, Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering, vol. 5, no. 1, York University, Toronto[22]
  • 2011 Afterimage: A Journal of Making Art and Mothering Teens. The M Word: Real Mothers in Contemporary Art. Bradford, Ontario: Demeter Press. 2011. Retrieved 2021-08-09.

Personal life[]

Reid's eyes were damaged at birth and later, as an adult she had a traumatic fall which prevented her from painting for five years.[8]

References[]

  1. ^ McMann, Evelyn de Rostaing (January 2003). Leslie Mary Margaret Reid. google books. ISBN 9780802027900. Retrieved 21 December 2019.
  2. ^ Heller, Jules; Heller, Nancy G. (2013). North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century. Routledge. p. 465. Retrieved 2021-07-26.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o "Leslie Reid". bonavistabiennale.com. Bonavista Biennale. Retrieved 2021-07-26.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e "Leslie Reid". arts.uottawa.ca. University of Ottawa. Retrieved 2021-07-28.
  5. ^ "Three Artists from Los Angeles". www.tate.org.uk. Tate Gallery, London, UK. Retrieved 2021-08-09.
  6. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Nemiroff, Diana (2013). Light as Metaphor. Leslie Reid: A Darkening Vision. Ottawa: Carleton University Art Gallery. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  7. ^ Joan Murray, "Making a Fresh New Thing: Ten Painters". artmagazine 43/44 (1969-1979), p. 24, 1970
  8. ^ Jump up to: a b c Gessell, Paul. "PROFILES: Arctic inspires new art by Leslie Reid". ottawamagazine.com. Ottawa Magazine, Winter 2014. Retrieved 2021-08-09.
  9. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e "Collection". www.gallery.ca. National Gallery of Canada. Retrieved 2021-08-07.
  10. ^ Nancy Baele, "Slate, chalk, lead – it must be November". Ottawa Citizen, 22 Nov 1990
  11. ^ Rynor, Becky. "An Interview with Leslie Reid". www.gallery.ca. Magazine, National Gallery of Canada. Retrieved 2021-08-06.
  12. ^ Jump up to: a b c Jonathan Shaughnessy, Acquisition Proposal for Leslie Reid’s Cape Pine: The Road and Cape Pine: The Cairn, accession #45406 and #45407, Curatorial File, National Gallery of Canada.
  13. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h A Dictionary of Canadian Artists, volumes 1-8 by Colin S. MacDonald, and volume 9 (online only), by Anne Newlands and Judith Parker National Gallery of Canada / Musée des beaux-arts du Canada
  14. ^ Valerie Knowles, Young artist's coup – all 30 feet of it. Ottawa Journal, December 1978
  15. ^ Anderson, Heather (2012). "Review". Canadian Art (Spring). Retrieved 2021-08-08.
  16. ^ Sandals, Leah. "Canadian Biennial Aims to Build Different Vision of National Art". canadianart.ca. Canadian Art Online Posted 2012. Retrieved 2021-08-09.
  17. ^ Jump up to: a b "Mapping the North". www.gallerieswest.ca. Galleries West Magazine, 2016. Retrieved 2021-07-27.
  18. ^ "Leslie Reid Visual Artist". canadac3.ca. Canada C3. Retrieved 2021-08-09.
  19. ^ Babinska, Anna. "Leslie Reid : Landscape into Light, Paintings and Prints, 1974-1990". e-artexte.ca. Arts Court, Ottawa. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  20. ^ Dyck, Sandra. "Surfacing". e-artexte.ca. Carleton U Art Gallery, Ottawa. Retrieved 2021-08-06.
  21. ^ Nancy Baele, Adding photographs, painter questions herself more deeply. Ottawa Citizen, August 11, 1996
  22. ^ "Afterimage: Making Art and Mothering Teens". jarm.journals.yorku.ca. Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering Vol 5, No 1 (2003),pp. 111-118. Retrieved 2021-08-08.

External links[]

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