About
Leonie is a conceptual artist currently exploring themes of identity, privacy and the ecological crisis. Her practice is broad, encompassing writing, printmaking, animation, installation and production.
Artist Statement
Collaboration is an important part of my practice and I have been artist-in-residence at several science labs. ‘Swarm’, made in response to a residency at the School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience at the University of Bristol, was awarded Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair’s Installation Award. A second, 10-metre long iteration of the installation was shown at Westgate Shopping Mall in Oxford over Easter 2023.
I often collaborate with other artists. ‘Alone Together’ is a group print installation supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England. It proposes that aloneness is a spectrum with isolation at one end, with solitude, a positive state, at the other.
My solo work explores themes of memory and loss, including loss of digital information, loss of privacy and how identity is changing in the post-digital age. After graduating from MA Multi-disciplinary Printmaking, I was awarded the Peter Reddick Bursary for Innovation in Relief Printmaking at Spike Print Studio and I spent the time experimenting with pushing the traditional medium of wood engraving. My year’s research was shown in a solo exhibition, Analogue Interference, which developed the theme of identity: re-presenting wood engraving in innovative ways and combining it with contemporary print media to reflect how identity is changing due to social media.
Much of the work is removed from context: at once embracing the intricacy of wood engraving and creating the potential for much larger images, using a tonal range to make systems-based visual narratives. I also digitally disrupt my mark-making and my experiments in process have led to screenprints, photopolymer and large-scale relief prints that explore the crossover from analogue to digital and back to analogue. These prints have a minimalist aesthetic disconnected from their original identity.
I am an elected member of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers and the Society of Wood Engravers. I have made several films about wood engraving as well as fictional short films. I also write and have been Editor of Printmaking Today since 2017. Writing, artist’s books and filmmaking are integral to my practice and I often merge the disciplines.
Current and upcoming exhibitions
Alone Together with SPIKED, Canwood Gallery, Hereford, 5 May – 11 June 2023; MAKE Southwest, Bovey Tracey, 30 June – 26 August 2023; and, Oriel Môn, Anglesey, 23 September – 5 November 2023
Society of Wood Engravers’ 85th Annual Exhibition, touring
The World is a Handkerchief, touring
Collections
Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK
Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK
Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing, China
Heilongjiang Museum of Printmaking, China
University of Bath, UK
Awards
Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair Installation Award, 2022
Print with a Point Prize, SWE, 2021
Peter Reddick Bursary for Innovation in Relief Printmaking, Spike Print Studio, Bristol, 2018-19
Visions of Science Bursary Award, Edge Arts Bath, 2018
Rawlinson Bequest, 2017
Royal Birmingham Society of Artists' Print Prize: Hawthorn Printmakers' Prize, 2016
National Original Print exhibition: The John Purcell Paper Prize, 2016
SWE's 79th Annual exhibition: The Rachel Reckitt Open Prize (joint winner), 2016
SWE's 71st Annual exhibition: The Rachel Reckitt Prize for a wood engraver under 35, 2009
Selected recent exhibitions
Split Graphic, IMPACT 12, The Island, Bristol, 2022
New Prints 2021/Summer: Lonely Hearts, International Print Center New York, 2021
MakeReady, SGCI Printmaking Conference, online, 2021
Bristol Artists’ Book Event (BABE), Arnolfini, online, 2021
Annual Open Exhibition, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, 2021
The World is a Handkerchief, Blackburn 20|20 Gallery, NYC, 2020
Analogue Interference solo exhibition, Spike Print Studio, Bristol, 2019
RE Masters: Relief, Bankside Gallery, London, 2019
National Original Print Exhibition, Bankside Gallery, London, 2019
Beyond 72dpi, the postdigitalprintmaker, SGCI Texas, USA, 2019
Wells Art Contemporary, Wells, 2019
Print: A Catalyst for Social Change? Bury Art Gallery & Museum, 2019
V&A Museum, London: Print of the Month, 2018
New Prints 2018, International Print Center, New York, USA, 2018
Collaborative Artists' Books, IMPACT 10, Santander, Spain, 2018
Visions of Science, Edge Arts, Bath University, 2018
Interruptions, Felios Foundation, Athens, Greece, 2018
National Original Print Exhibition, Bankside Gallery, London, 2018
Print Prize, RBSA, Birmingham, 2018
MAMDP Mini Print Exhibition, Arnolfini, Bristol, 2018
Wood Engraving Invitational, Davidson Gallery, Seattle, 2017
The Age of Enlightenment, project and touring exhibition funded by The Arts Council, The Baring Foundation, Devon Guild of Craftsmen and DAISI, 2017
Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing, 2017
RE Masters: One-off, Bankside Gallery, London 2017
Royal West of England Autumn Open and Drawn Biennial, Bristol, 2017
National Original Print Exhibition, Bankside Gallery, London, 2016
Royal Birmingham Society of Artists' Print Prize, Birmingham, 2016
Royal West of England Autumn Open, Bristol, 2016
Liverpool Open, Liverpool, 2016
The Tokyo Art Book Fair, Tokyo, 2016
RE Masters: Relief prints, Bankside Gallery, London, 2015
National Original Print Exhibition, Bankside Gallery, London, 2015
Royal West of England Autumn Open, Bristol, 2015
National Original Print Exhibition, Bankside Gallery, London, 2014
Royal West of England Autumn Open, Bristol, 2014
Talks
Regular programme of hosting artist’s talks for Spike Print Studio: Lucy May Schofield, Ian Chamberlain, Sumi Perera and Catriona Gourlay, Assistant Curator, Words & Image, V&A, ongoing
Artist’s Talk, Spike Print Studio, 2022
In Conversation with Hilary Paynter, Northern Print, 2020
Chaired Q&A with Emma Stibbon RA & Amy-Jane Blackhall, Bankside Gallery, 2019
Socio-political Artist’s Book Practice, Masters’ series, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, 2019
Artist’s Talk, Department of Fine Art, University of Salford, 2018
Collaborative artists' books to develop research practice, IMPACT 10 ENCUENTRO, Santander, Spain, 2018
British Printmakers, SGCI Conference, Atlanta and accompanying exhibition British Printmakers in the American South, Decatur, Georgia, USA, 2017
Publications
Leonie has been Editor of the journal Printmaking Today since Spring 2017
Visual article, Interalia Magazine (November 2018)
Artists’ Page, The Blue Notebook (Vol 12, No 1, Autumn-Winter 2017)
Printmaker's Diary, Printmaking Today (Vol 25, No 3, Autumn 2016)
Age of Enlightenment, Printmaking Today (Vol 25, No 2, Summer 2016)
Final Cut, Printmaking Today (Vol 22, No 3, Autumn 2013)
Modern British Wood Engraving, SWE DVD, running time 145 minutes, available from: SWE publications