Lesley Wingfield’s Uisce exhibition was launched this week and will run in Athlone Regional Sports Centre until the end of May.
Lesley is a practising local artist and has been involved in the creative process for the last twenty years.
She graduated with a degree in Fine Art from Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology and has pursued her career in the medium of painting and drawing. Her work has portrayed the intimacy of portraiture and has been recognised through the award of numerous bursaries, residencies from Westmeath County Council and by a recent purchase for the Office of Public Works permanent Collection which will be housed in Tullamore Hospital, Co Offaly.
Lesley’s portraits are also owned by well known musicians Paddy Casey and Declan O’Rourke.
Lesley’s fascination with the idea of the portrait has brought her recent series of work into the extraordinary environment of the immersed individual.
Her initial intent was to submerge her subjects into an alien environment therefore distracting from the intensity of the pose. The subjects have evolved into an aquatic organism at one with their environment, unconcerned with time or space.
Due to the contemporary environment of recession people are adapting to a broader entrepreneurial approach to commerce. This includes the artist who is exploring beyond the typical venue of the white box (gallery ) space in order to bring their work to the public domain rather than the public visiting the exhibition spaces. This exhibition is a prime example of an inventive collaboration between the receptivity of Liam Cunningham manager of Athlone Regional Sports Centre and the importance of an artist’s work being viewed.
This is a widely used public facility with an opportunity for a greater audience.
