Shapes, Stick Figures and Color
J.H. Leigh

Artist Statement: Creating art has brought many things to my life: joy, adventure, excitement, frustration, anger…The list could go on and on. There were times when I wanted to quit, trash everything and be done with it, but I never could do that. There are things inside me that can find no other way out except through art, and my health and my life depend upon it doing just that.

The works on display here were inspired by different things—ideas, nature, other artists’ works, and especially from something my sister did once while looking at an abstract nonobjective painting. I watched her scan the work and then she said, “I see…” and she listed off an assortment of representational beings. Of course, none of these things were actually in the painting but that didn’t matter. This was how the painting spoke to her. It set the wheels turning inside my head, and I started thinking about how I might use this in a work of art.

I began simply, using lines, shapes and colors, composing them on the canvas so that the viewer would construct something representational out of something abstract. I incorporated various principles of design to set the stage and to add the ingredients found in all works of art. With the titles of the earlier works I wanted to draw attention to the three elements to remind the viewers exactly what they are looking at, to make the distinction between what is true and what is imagined and to point out the deception of representational space. Every object on earth is made of lines, shapes and color.

As I continued to work with the process, characters emerged, narratives formed, and I allowed this to evolve into a personal statement with some works directed at the larger issues facing the modern world. Sometimes one needs to say things others need to hear. The world needs art, not as something to simply decorate the wall, but as a reminder that we are human, that people make mistakes and head down paths of dubious outcomes. Perhaps art can make a difference by inspiring the masses to take action in order to bring about change in society, a change to heal the harm we’ve caused, and ultimately, a change to make the world a better and a safer place. In our current stage of human history there has never been a more important time for change. Let us hope that those with the means redirect their resources into actions to save the planet, instead of a means to escape it. No other creature on earth creates art. There is no other profession I’d rather be involved in than the visual arts.

About the Artist: I was born at home in what the family refers to as “the Green House” in the summer of 1957. The last child of 5 children, I was the only boy. What else could I be but an artist, having four older sisters and a mother who was fervently religious and inexhaustibly creative? Art was the place for this introvert to find tranquility, and it was the only place I ever received praise from my parents. Yet, my parents didn’t mean to encourage me. No one wanted me to grow up to be an artist.

My father was a tobacco farmer who lived to hunt and fish. He was gruff and irascible and intended to shape me into a farmer to one day inherit and run the small farm. My mother’s dream for me was to work at a factory making 10 dollars an hour and to run the farm on my time off. Yet, their proletariat dream was not my dream.

Life for a creative boy who hated tobacco work and spending hot summer days in the tobacco patch or on the hay wagon stacking heavy bales of hay was unhappy at best. I was led to believe that to be a “legitimate” artist one must go to college. When I got to college I found I couldn’t take the art courses I wanted to take without first taking a host of other courses I had no interest in. When I finally got to take the courses I desired they were miserably disappointing. My professors spoke in riddles, or didn’t divulge anything I thought important. I wanted them to come out and say it straight on, but they never did. To make a long story short, I completed two Bachelor of Arts Degrees and a Master’s Degree, and I still didn’t get what I was after. In essence, I am a self-taught artist who found some of the answers I desired after years of self-directed study.

I live in south central Kentucky with my wife of over 35 years. I am a father and a grandfather, and I thank God for enriching my life with them. I am a member of the Sheltowee Artisan Group of southern Kentucky with whom I show regularly. In 2013 I was published by Art Buzz in their annual book, and I’ve shown in various group shows, including the Kentucky National Wildlife Exhibition. I’ve had two other solo exhibitions. The artists who inspire me the most are Wassily Kandinsky, Georgia O’Keeffe, Mark Rothko, Emil Schumacher, and Jean Michelle Basquiat.