Leonie Westbrook
Jeweller
Published: 09.03.2016
optusnet.com.auBio
Leonie Westbrook is based in Adelaide, South Australia. In 2015 she was invited by Gray Street Workshop to participate in the Calendar Girls project and exhibited in 2016 alongside other alumni and current tenants to celebrate GSW 30 year Anniversary.Statement
Artist StatementEvery hand making process will at some stage produce mistakes and variances. By embracing deviation and letting it inform my work, there is delight in the unexpected and joy of discovery resulting from errors, which rather than render an object obsolete or wrong, instead provide opportunity. Essential to conveying this notion is direct involvement by hand from conception to completion. This combined with repetition and a response to the way materials react, informs both my research and making so idea and object develop simultaneously. Exploitation of the properties and ignoring the innate limitations of the materials, also allows playfulness as I am working without implied restriction. While risky as there are many mistakes and failures, this is the point of it, encouraging deviation and possibly transformation.
My work utilizes the versatility of the most basic forms. These multiply through folding out of a parent shape creating more aesthetically complicated forms, while the actuality is that of basic geometry. Using multiples combined with repetitive hand making processes is another way of providing an opportunity for deviation. While I use care when making, I find it impossible to reproduce forms without imperfection, the result aesthetically reminiscent of a mechanical process gone wrong.
For my most current work I start by experimenting with cardboard before making in metal. I noticed these models would change over time and like an ongoing conversation, inform my making while working the metal. Both metal and card start out as a flat piece of material that is then cut and manipulated, but as time passes the model “relaxes” its hard lines into softer shapes and curves, stretching downwards if hung, or gently sagging if left on my bench for a while. I try to capture a moment of this transformation.
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