Rebecca Lesley
“I grew up in a few different places including Glasgow but mostly in the areas just past west London. As a child I didn’t have any friends and I was very behind in class with a disruptive family life so art has always been my safe place, because of that I promised myself that I would prioritise art. I have stuck to that promise. I work as a costume textiles artist and dyer for film and TV.
As a self-taught painter, I use oil paint to produce the finer portrait details, often mixing other mediums to create expressive layers that contrast with the text and structures that sit underneath. Many of my paintings are brushed over several times and the original is completely lost, it’s hard not to over think the process and get too carried away. I often produce work as a series, playfully mixing women’s themes with allegory, religious iconography and pop culture references to create hyper-femme pieces that are occasionally tongue-in-cheek. Some of my paintings are expressions of what femme is to me in the 21st century, where we are battling being ‘too girly’ or ‘too bold’ or ‘a slut’ and confused about where to look for spirituality without being critiqued.”