Shortly after receiving 5 years full-time training in London and Liverpool in the 1960s, Lesley arrived in Australia in 1969 as a young artist and art teacher. Her practice today is predominately driven by a deep appreciation and respect for the Australian landscape. This was evident in her solo exhibition ‘Becoming Australian’ at the Holmes a Court Gallery at Vasse Felix in 2020. Exhibition curator Dr Laetitia Wilson writes: “This exhibition offers a window into the exquisite art practice of Western Australian artist Lesley Meaney whose approach to capturing the Australian landscape is dynamic, vibrant, and distinctively original. This exhibition is comprised of paintings, objects and stitched works that taken together make for a sensorial experience of fiery sunburnt colours, deep earthy tones, and slivers of green. The works evoke a sense of being in and belonging to a place, as a sustained, meditative, experimental and unique response to the Australian landscape.” ‘Becoming Australian – an artist’s journey’, launched at her 50-year survey exhibition reveals her evolution as an artist. This book also confirms her vast range of skills, her virtuosity and versatility, both in technique and image-making, with a constantly shifting focus between abstract and representational elements, to create both 2D and 3D works.
You won’t find Lesley on Facebook, Instagram or Tik Tok – but willing to share in the privacy of her new purpose-built bush studio – big enough for a swing! While she often states “I cannot predict what I will be creating in a decade, next year or even next week. Past works are merely prologue – like a line in a poem or cadence in music”. Her current works reveal a closer look at eucalyptus fragments. Their kaleidoscopic visual feasts, transmuted by the forces of drought, a burning sun, a burnishing wind, and linear journeys etched into the trunks by insects are hard to ignore; especially when these fragments can be within strides of our front doors. Lesley adds “Becoming an Australian from within has been a slow process; my immersion into the landscape has been a partner in that journey. I feel that I have now taken root, like one of the Eucalypts – trees, which, I like to think, represent the spirit and souls of our sunburnt country” For more listen to https://matttinney.com.au/good-chat-podcast/lesley-meaney Represented by Studio Gallery, Marrinup Drive, Yallingup.