Comments

Leslie Stannage has always shared with me a love of America. Its culture and its art. Various strands of this seem to have shaped his art, primarily his interest in photorealism and the point at which fine art and the images of popular culture collide.

In recent years the female form has dominated his work, but this latest group of paintings have become increasingly abstract. Sometimes the image is unclear and only becomes obvious through one or two clues, such as a line of buttons or a chest pocket. Shapes have become more important in their own right, not just in relation to the image, and colour has also become increasingly independent, used to create and set a dominant mood.

The selection of the image, usually the female torso, could perhaps be seen in the light of Leslie's involvement with film and his enormous interest in the medium. These paintings seem at times like a single frame from a film that has been selected and taken out of context, forcing us to look at the image in a new way.

Neil Shawcross