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.”
Lesley’s recent publication, ‘Becoming Australian – an artist’s journey’, launched at her 50 year survey exhibition, is a visual precis of her evolution as an artist. This book also confirms her vast range of skills, her virtuosity and versatility, both in technique and image-making, and a constantly-shifting focus between abstract and representational elements, to create both 2D and 3D works.
Lesley Meaney has also participated in numerous group shows in Australia and overseas. She is represented in many public and private collections, has won numerous awards and is documented in a number of significant Australian art publications. Lesley, a pioneer of the theme exhibition in the 1980s in Western Australia, has had 30 solo exhibitions. She has held senior lecturing positions in Western Australia, as well as teaching indigenous artists based at Cossack in the Northwest Pilbara region. She has also run Summer School and Extension classes at the University of Western Australia.
Lesley is currently building her new 80sqm studio– complete with swing on her property in Yallingup (hopefully finished by this year’s ‘Open Studios”). As for her future practice, she 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. I have endeavored to retain the freedom to create what resonates, whatever the consequences”
For more listen to https://matttinney.com.au/good-chat-podcast/l