Joie de Vivre- "Let Them Eat Cake" essay by Elizabeth Caughey May 2008
‘Let Them Eat Cake’, Virginia Leonard’s latest collection of work, is a joyous feast of exuberant colour inspired by the Sofia Coppola-directed film ‘Marie Antoinette’. In these strong, honest abstracts and semi-abstract landscapes, Virginia’s profusion of luscious and glorious colour mirrored from the film conveys a sense of the self-indulgent excesses of the 18th century French court of the Dauphin, Louis XVI and his young bride, Maria Antonia of Austria.

Virginia’s sumptuous palette evokes the decadent opulence and luxury of this era in which sensuality and beauty could teeter on the brink of, and sometimes slip over the edge into, debauchery and immorality. ‘Painting’, she says, ‘is a bit the same. I wanted these works to reflect that fragile balance, and I always try to paint at that critical point where prettiness of colour could tip over the edge’.

The abstract landscapes reference the valleys and hills that surround Virginia’s Matakana studio, but the colours are once again inspired by Coppola’s film. In contrast to the smooth resin surfaces are the small, gritty, ceramic flowers or gardens affixed, in a nod to the 2002 works which celebrated the flowers at French Farm, Akaroa. Each landscape is a composite, drawn from her memory of favourite views, including those of local vineyards, their colours and structure.

Leonard’s paintings have always been about colour and surface, the formal concerns of painting, rather than subject. These works demonstrate an evolution in her process. Feeling she had painted herself to an impasse using thick oils in the French Farm works, Leonard discovered the freedom of resin which allowed her to create her ‘layers of history’ by making marks on its smooth surface without creating the earlier impasto effect. These graphite, oil pastel or oil paint marks disturb the surface of the glossy resin and lend to the paintings a slippery tactility and a pleasing tension that ensures they are lifted out of the merely decorative. The sprayed-on underpainting and Virginia’s flourishes, loops and swirls provide depth of field and movement for the eye to follow. The reflective surface of the resin further engages the viewer as shadow and light play over it.

Virginia works intuitively and, once the resin has been poured on to the ground oils, works close to the canvas, not allowing herself to pull back until she is confident the painting is finished. She describes the smaller works as being very ‘careful’ works, as they taught her the discipline of reducing big marks to fit a small space. Creating them was a challenging but enjoyable voyage of discovery as she learned to think on a smaller scale.

Virginia has been inspired by the works of abstract expressionists such as Brett Whiteley and Richard Diebenkorn. Katarina Gross, too, has been an influence, with her big, gestural spray-painting in which the spray paint ‘se bouge comme les yeux’ (the movement of the spray paint is made like the movement of the eyes). In defiance of the contemporary trend towards cool, clever art, Virginia follows her heart and paints pure joy manifested as hot, molten colour. These are serious paintings for people who love life and live it to the full.
Elizabeth Caughey - Exhibition Catalogue May 2008