New Work
Barry Whistler Gallery
January 26 - March 13, 2021
Dallas, TX
 
 
       
 
Central Tendencies
Octavia Art Gallery
February 2-23, 2019
New Orleans, LA		  
 
       
 
Pareidolia
Kruger Gallery
September 8 - November 19, 2016
Chicago, IL		  
 
       
  Optic Verve
Women & Their Work
March 29-May 18, 2014
Austin, TX
 
       
 
Marfa in Milano
Spazio Orso 16
October 2013
Milan, Italy		  
 
 

 

  

 

Leslie Wilkes: Double Take
Barry Whistler Gallery
January 19 - February 23, 2013
Dallas, TX

“Wilkes, a painter from Marfa, creates heady, madly diagrammatic color-block oil paintings (the exhibition also features the gouache studies she makes in the process of preparing the much larger paintings. Exploring propulsive quakes of shape and color, Wilkes’ compositions have a huge booming expressiveness…. Reminiscent of kaleidoscopes, woven Indian blankets, and Pucci prints, they will suck you into a particular vortex powered by symmetry; try to focus on the peripheral elements of any given work and you will fail.” - Betsy Lewis, Dallas Observer

    
 
         
         
 

 

Sonic Architectonic
The University of Texas at Dallas
January 27- Februrary 18, 2012
Dallas, TX

SONIC ARCHITECTONIC was a mixed media exhibit exploring the architecture of sound in art. Some of the artists work directly with noise, frequency, and what we hear or feel through sound waves. Other artists work above or below the threshold of hearing, wielding images that suggest sound. Yet others anticipate our relationship to sound, addressing our expectations and cognitive reflexes. National and local artists participated in this exhibition curated by Visual Art faculty member Lorraine Tady.

 


left: Leslie Wilkes (Marfa, TX)__right: Robert Ortega (Brooklyn, NY)

 

  
         
         
 

 

 

Leslie Wilkes: Face Blind
Generator Exhibitions
March 5 - April 9, 2011
Alburquerque, NM

For her second solo exhibition in New Mexico Leslie Wilkes elevates the scale of her dense, psychedelic gouaches, expanding them into a series of new large-scale oil paintings.  Reflecting her life-long interest in pattern and bright color, the paintings are initially based largely on geometric patterns from the 1960’s. In the process of painting, Wilkes explores innumerable compositions until a particular element evokes a response of recognition. Face blindness refers to the disorder called Prosopagnosia in which a person is unable to recognize and distinguish the various comparative features of a face. Exploring the interplay between states of reading and interpreting an image that is delicately balanced in tension between abstraction and anthropomorphic facial recognition has been Wilkes’s basic motivation in her most recent work.

  
         
         
 

Leslie Wilkes
Red Flag Projects Space, College of Santa Fe
November 15, 2008 - January 10, 2009
Santa Fe, NM

For her exhibition in the new College of Santa Fe project space, Leslie Wilkes has selected a small group of gouaches from a series of one hundred that she has been working on over the past year. Each of the paintings in the exhibition evolved from a single common pattern. By seeking out interesting shape possibilities within the source pattern and isolating those shapes with color, Wilkes defines new patterns and shapes for each work. The resulting paintings only hint at their common lineage via their quadrantal format. More pronounced are the dramatic differences visible from painting to painting. Bold color contrasts and pairings that shouldn’t work are converted into elegant harmonies by the artist’s use of subtle tempering and tonal modulation. Although the works inform each other, they ultimately stand as independent statements, each with a unique attitude and disposition.

Ben Meisner, curator

  
         
         

Leslie Wilkes
Gallery Nord
November 15, 2008 - January 10, 2009
San Antonio, TX

This work is part of a series of 100 gouaches, all of which are based on a single geometric pattern I discovered in a 1970’s graphic design manual. The patterns in the book are simple line drawings that could be repeated infinitely (like fabric or wall paper). I found a pattern that interested me and looked for shapes within it. I started making studies by coloring in the spaces between the lines. By isolating these shapes with color, new patterns emerged from the original. I paint without using masking tape creating a softer, less rigid edge, which increases the vibration between colors.

I have always been attracted to pattern and bright color. As a kid, I made drawings of a flowered blanket I kept on my bed, my psychedelic curtains, album covers and my favorite summer accessory, a Peter Max beach towel. I was especially affected by a blouse my grandmother wore that was reminiscent of Bridget Riley’s early black and white paintings. As with Riley’s work, I’m fascinated by how pattern, shape and color can alter visual perception and stimulate a kind of visual pleasure.

Leslie Wilkes
November 2008

  
         
         
 

Fresquez-Meisner-Wilkes
Waypoint Gallery
October 11-December 12, 2008
Marfa, TX

         
         


Marfa Book Co. Gallery photos by Allison V. Smith

Red White Blue
Marfa Book Co. Gallery
February 10-April 12, 2006
Marfa, TX

For the past few years, I have been making paintings based on geometric patterns, using a range of saturated colors. Last year, I noticed my palette was increasing in intensity, which I figured was influenced by my stressful life in San Francisco. So, this past summer, when I moved to Marfa to live a quieter life, I expected my palette to become calmer by shifting to the muted, earthy tones of the high desert. But I was wrong.

Red White Blue are the most vivid colors in the Far West Texas landscape. I see them everywhere: on bumper stickers supporting the troops, plastic grocery bags, product labels, license plates, campaign signs, and of course, the ubiquitous Texas flag. I had never wanted to paint with these colors because of their too obvious patriotic associations.

In this exhibition, each piece has the same underlying pattern, but variations in the color arrangement disturb recognition of the original form - sort of like an election map of red and blue states. Most interesting to me are the compositions that remind me of something in my new landscape: the night sky, cowboy gear, a Mexican dance or even the lyrics of an old Texas blues song.

This urge to use Red White Blue caught me off guard. It has been confusing and troubling, kind of like how it feels to be an American right now. I suppose it was this unease that propelled me forward, all the while wondering if I would be branded a patriot or a traitor. Would my liberal friends be suspicious of my motives? Would conservatives feel at ease or think I had desecrated our national colors? Or, who knows, maybe the NSA will start listening to my phone calls.

Leslie Wilkes
February 2006

  
     
 
® Leslie Wilkes. design by s.hunn