The works of Wayne Leal

I create relief sculptures, using various raw materials such as chopped rubber, bark, stone, sand, rope, etc. I apply them to the surface for a rough texture and then finish them with dark metallic paints (iron oxide is one of my faves) so as to bring a certain level of refined formality to the pieces, ready for presentation under the combined lighting of a gallery environment.

I am drawn to heavy textures found in the organic and synthetic environments, the deep crevices found in the bark of a tree, cracks in a sidewalk, rusted metal can all trigger my senses. When out and about, I enjoy looking, discovering and often collecting various items and bringing them back to my studio, where I will hang or dangle them to turn my space into a menagerie of odd items so as to perpetuate the stimuli.

The primary objective in my work is to respond to these realities as opposed to recreating them. My work is deliberately minimal & hopefully leaves room for viewer interpretation and inspiration.

She said: Sculpture did it for him, the calculations and investigations, the juxtapositions and synthesis of mediums, the physical exertion. New surfaces, textures, the euphoria of making, of process, hands deep in plaster, sand, paint, talked him down. His reliefs were oversized, non-centric textural fields of monochromatic color.

work in progress He said: I first began knitting at the age of one. My mother had given me a lovely piece of cardboard to play with so I picked it up and there was no turning back. As the years went by I would see elephants in my back garden and would go out to smell the tambourines marching by along the telescopic highway.

Of course, a life in the rhododendron bushes made this extremely difficult but somehow I managed and every Tuesday there was pie and cake for all the butter heads of the forest dooms. Collectively, I suppose, one could have called it an organ grinder without any means for eleven fists and a chimpanzee... then again, I wasn't really counting because I was too busy folding my submarines in the toaster ovens of terminalistic fortitudes.