We recently connected with Leslie Nemour and have shared our conversation below.
Leslie , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
Choosing one project to discuss would be like having to pick a favorite artist or a movie. Instead, I will list a few project highlights from the past 40 years without disappearing into a rabbit hole. For the record I have been an active artist for 70% of my life in both private and public practice.
Public Work
1987-2009: This was a period when I was actively involved in community mural work in schools leading projects with children and college students, as well as public commissions.
2001: Some stand outs for me while teaching mural painting at MiraCosta College was initiating temporary campus murals as part of the curriculum. Subjects I am particularly proud of include a series of thirty 8’ X4’ black and white portraits of humanitarian leaders and peace advocates, each researched and selected by students resulting in an eclectic gallery of larger-than-life heroes. I found it appropriate that the exterior site created a powerful entryway into the campus learning resource center.
2007: Another was “Wall of the Fallen”, an exterior corridor of portraits of slain U.S. service members, each framed by camouflage patterns and invented color palettes. Each warrior was adopted by a student to represent their likeness and honor their lives and service. One student researched the identity of the fallen soldier that was her subject in the mural. Through her efforts, she was able to contact his mother to learn about this young man’s life The student and the mother formed a connection of mutual appreciation and respect. When the mural was later disassembled, the mother was gifted her son’s portrait. It is just one example of a student going the extra mile to bring more depth and meaning to what otherwise could have been another class assignment.
2000: Commissioned murals from the City and County of San Diego and SPARC ‘s Neighborhood Pride program in Los Angeles were based on research into the cultural identity and goals of local neighborhoods. As an example, “The World is Yours,” Kittridge Elementary, Van Nuys, CA, focused on children’s systemic connection to the world through the avenue of education. At the center of the mural two hands cradle the image of a girl taking an imaginary trip around the world while reading a book. She is surrounded by books with open pages falling from the sky and universal cultural symbols highlighting both the local Armenian and Hispanic community. This project involved the collaboration with neighborhood residents, school staff, administration, and of course myself, the artist whose job it was to translate the stories of the community into a poetic composition.
My strongest recollection of these described projects is the sense of pride and respect that was manifested in the collaborative spirit.
Selected Studio Projects
1999-2000: At one point, before online dating was a thing, I was perusing the personal ads in The Reader and collaging them onto a canvas to create a background texture. There I came across an ad for a complementary catalog of mail order brides from various countries looking for an American husband. To procure as many as possible I asked all my male friends to request copies, which I then had to later insist they hand over to me. The hidden phenomena of catalogs bursting with women from unstable and repressive countries was overwhelming. Some women were sultry, others appeared naïve, and almost all were young. Below each was a single sentence to describe them, for instance “I like houseplants: or “I like older men” A painting series soon developed leading to twenty-two oversized portraits aimed at giving these disenfranchised women a sense of humanity and individuality. Each composition framed a potential bride within the negative space of a wishbone as a symbol of their desire to find a better life and as a shield to protect the heart.
From 2010-2018: I produced a series of 15 large scale works painted directly onto projection screens, the kind that roll up into a canister, as you would find in a classroom. At the same time, I was referencing cinema and recontextualizing narratives removed from their original source. “Love Lessons” represented female archetypes from movies, challenging stereotypical one-dimensional characters such as the lush, the pious, the villain, the Tomboy, the housewife, the siren, the vamp, etc., each 6’X6’ or larger. Hanging together these twelve painted women formed a new coalition to form a single comprehensive spirit. Growing up I wanted to be the best of these women and later learned that I am all of them. (See “Knitter” image attached.)
2013: I am compelled to mention a painting series inspired by fistfights in westerns, a tribute to my father who I often found napping in front of cowboys fighting on TV. Many years later I found my then partner doing the same thing. But the less personal significance was a way of connecting the use of violence in society as a problem-solving solution in all levels of confrontation, as evidenced in the news and politics. Humorously the first in the series was inspired by the true story of Diego Rivera in Paris punching an art critic in a fight over cubism titled, “Fistfight Over Cubism”. Others took on political issues in titles such as “Fistfight Over Feminism” and “Fistfight Over Immigration Reform”. However, no matter the titles, most of the paintings were of cowboys fighting, Titles are tricky. They can overly dictate a meaning, or they can add a twist to the obvious.
Leslie , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am a native of San Diego and grew up in wonder of Hollywood cinema. I spent my youth on the beaches of La Jolla, then later at concerts, practicing drawing and painting and then writing bad poetry in high school, probably about things “too mature for my age’, to quote Mr, McCann my poetry teacher. My junior high English teacher saw the drawings on the cover of my notebook and said that I’d “better stick to writing”, so I of course shifted gears to art. I’m not sure why, but that was what I thought I was meant to do. I wasn’t the best at it, or maybe at anything I was aware of, so I just went with it. While in high school I took art classes at the university and attended life drawing open studio workshops. Not surprising, I was an art major.
Later I attended UCSD as a grad student and received my MFA in Visual Arts in the early eighties. While there, I worked as a teaching assistant, and then magically got hired to teach painting part time in the summers at a local college. From there I taught a slew of art classes at community colleges and at UCSD, was assistant to the director of the Mandeville Gallery for five years, painted murals and taught art in elementary schools, and many other temporary jobs to fill in the gaps. After 12 years of this I was offered a tenure track teaching position (drawing and painting) at MiraCosta College where I taught for 30 years before retiring in 2021. I was always a full-time exhibiting painter with a full-time teaching job. I happily remain a full-time painter.
In graduate school I discovered the common DNA between cinema and painting and learned to see film as painting and painting as film. Several decades later I began to combine my passion for painting with my movie obsession.
I typically paint from 2-dimensional reference images generated from randomly photographing vintage movies as they stream on the television screen. Movie genres from past eras and cinematic sources (specifically from the 40’s – early 70’s) are referenced to contrast the parallel energy of the past with that of the present. I attempt to bring a fresh perspective to ingrained genres and to question the status quo from the past. The intent is to transcend a grounded image in time into an otherworldly, or fluttering existence.
I often walk my dog at dusk, just before or after sunset. There is a quiet magic at that time in the transition from day to night, living in both realities simultaneously. Those in between moments that cannot be nailed down are nature’s gift as they transcend the expected and merge two worlds into one. It’s much like being both awake and asleep at the same time, or time traveling through memory or recollection. Perhaps the underlying narrative of my painting is the conscious and the subconscious having a conversation, but I expect others to view it through their own eyes.
Sometimes I don’t’ recognize the nested stories inside the bigger narrative until I look at the paintings lined up side by side. One of those subjects, as you may find in the image examples accompanying this interview, is suggestive of our concerns for privacy and the history of the “male gaze”* in painting. That said, we are all voyeurs looking into the private world of a painting, especially if it seduces one to come closer.
Quoting myself: “As figures move into and out of the composition, or face away, preoccupied within themselves, sometimes they are watching or unaware of being watched, Issues of judgment, voyeurism, and objectification are tapped into as a nod to the world of insecurities spurred by social media and our profound loss of privacy. ”
I currently work from my studio at my home in the community of South Park, San Diego (not the one on the Cartoon Network). Follow me on Instagram for upcoming shows or view my website to see more paintings!
* paintings by men of women that function as pleasurable subjects to be seen by men.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
Anything and everything is at an artist’s disposal for subject matter and content, especially oneself. Movies, travels, conversations, nature, stress, driving, pleasure, pain, dreams, family, housework, health, music and more are filtered into my creative meanderings. And love! My research can go anywhere but so much of it is born from personal experience. A sound clip from a conversation on the street suggests a painting title, or a found 1940’s magazine inspires a new series, or a new purple bloom in the garden reappears in a new color palette. All that influence and stimulation is then funneled into a studio with four walls and a window (if you are lucky) where the discipline and experiments begin. For many artists, and myself, a lot of alone time is required to filter out the mind clutter and find one’s center. That works well for me as I crave private time and can get cranky when I don’t get it. Personally, it is dependent on the balance of an interactive and observant external life. How fortunate to feel passion for a discipline that embraces the individual as a holistic being.
The reward of sharing my work through exhibition venues is unrivaled. So much heart, anxiety and time is invested into the art making process that the few opportunities to exhibit IRL are golden. Although I occasionally post work on social media, I find it disheartening that a 4’X6’ painting becomes valued through likes and views and is minimized in both scale and integrity. As a culture we see people, art and the outside world increasingly less in person. My fear is that the screen is filling in for the real-life experience instead of complementing it.
One of the rewards I cherish as an artist is knowing other artists. Being a painter can be lonely as it requires intimate space and time, but also the freedom to just let the mind wander. Knowing that I live in a community of idiosyncratic creatives reinforces a shared uniqueness and mutual support.
I am also grateful that I can appreciate the overlooked beauties in the world and remain in awe of the intangible.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
To be a storyteller.
To question what we think we see.
To look back in time with open eyes.
I am hopeful that the body of work I make will one day be left behind as my epitaph. I see it as the documentation of who I am and how I see the world separate from the inside out. The first mission is to describe my vision through the lens of painting. My nature is to keep a lot locked inside so without this mode of expression I think I might implode. Painting is my passageway to the rest of the world, however limited its exposure. I believe the concept of mortality is alive in my work as it is in my everyday awareness. I simultaneously celebrate the beauty of an earthly existence with a critical eye on humanity, which is too often inhumane.
I believe story telling is critical to human nature. My paintings ignore narrative traditions and builds on undefined and isolated moments. I like the idea of coming into the middle of something, without knowledge of the beginning or end, and looking back in time with open eyes as a way to move forward into the future.
In short, my mission is to be true to myself, and through that, to connect with others who may reconsider the boundaries of their conception of art. I would like to think that my work is weirdly reflective of our unknown place in the timeline of our lives.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.leslienemour.com
- Instagram: @tashuluv
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leslie.nemour
Image Credits
All photos by the artist, Leslie Nemour