Leslie Valade

Originally from the southwest of France, Leslie is a contemporary, passionate and committed artist. Shortly after the birth of her daughter, she felt the need to explore her creativity and discovered her vocation for painting. Self-taught, she sharpens her artistic sensitivity through dance, photography and travel. With her works in varied styles, she accurately and subtly evokes femininity, natural and strong, across time and cultures. Leslie participated in her first exhibition in New York in 2020 and has since multiplied awards and shows.

With varied works, ranging from portraiture to abstraction, Leslie plays on styles and combines urban art and ancestral cultures. On the canvas, she works with different materials that she superimposes to play on transparency and contrasts. Its backgrounds are first painted with acrylic then sprinkled with gold leaf or ethnic fabric. With a stroke of white brush, she then creates the faces, before detailing them with pastels and charcoal. In his painting, sensitive and colorful, the artist expresses his emotions with sincerity and spontaneity. She admires the photos of globetrotters Julian Sacristan and Georges Courrèges, as well as the paintings of Stéphanie Ledoux and the creations of graffiti artists Seaty and Mateo. Between tradition and modernity, Leslie questions the place of women, cultural identity and traditions in our contemporary societies.