Contemporary Abstracts

website: www.leslienewman.art
email: lel@leslienewman.art
Instagram: @leslienewman

I live and work surrounded by nature in Indianola, Washington. My abstract art includes expressive iPad paintings, mixed-media originals, and modernist, hard-edge “Shapemaking” prints. My career as a designer and illustrator and many years of art study with expressive painter Barbara Fugate inform my work.

My digital paintings and Shapemaking works are offered as limited-edition archival pigment prints on acid-free, 100% cotton paper. They are striking, with a richly vivid and velvety-matte surface.

Artist Statement

Abstraction is freedom. Without the constraints of representation, I explore space, form, line, and color, creating artwork that invites a long look and sparks the imagination. I leave it to the viewer to dive in and discover their mood and meaning and hope it provides an escape from the frenetic state of today’s world. 

I use and am inspired by new media digital tools, methods of global online sharing such as Instagram, and digital and traditional painting. My process, while intuitive, draws on fundamental art principles. I aim to create compositions that are energetic and unexpected. Some of my influences include Matisse’s cut-outs, mid-century art and design, and the works of Richard Diebenkorn, Joan Mitchell, Stuart Davis, and David Hockney.

I look to art to inspire, surprise, and bring forth a wave of feeling that reminds us of our wondrous existence. I feel it in my process of creating these works, and I hope the viewers of my work share this sense of wonder.