LESLIE STONER| ENCAUSTIC ARTIST

Leslie Stoner grew up in northwest Montana on a 50 acre mink farm tucked deep in the woods of the Rocky Mountains. Her close observations of darkness and light started early; as a child storms raged in and out of her home. To escape she spent most of her time outdoors, racing through the fields of stinging knapweed, playing hide and seek with the trees, wrestling with the creek, or cocooning herself in a burrow until the thunder had gone.

Those light-stippled woods of her childhood would continue to feed her ongoing engagement as an artist with what lies beneath and what rises up; the gleam of found treasure and the slither of movement; what is protected and what is revealed. The darkness is a safe place, a hollow offering shelter in the quiet calm of the mind. Upon observation lies an inky, playful swerve beneath a bright reflection. A weight lifted, released. Mark of a scar, spin of a tail. Growth and rest. Engaging the imagery of the natural world, often playing with notions of scale, her paintings bear clear marks of the fire in which they were created, revealing the unsettling beauty of scarred textures, gradient mists and sooty webbed lines. Her abstracted landscapes resist a single narrative, instead creating a space for discovery, revelation and renewal.

Leslie Stoner's studio is nestled on the edge of a forest looking out onto an array of plant life that creates the shelter and privacy in which she craves. Wild bunnies, deer, chipmunks, dragonflies, frogs and a variety of birds including frequent sightings of eagles can be seen from where she paints. Collections of shells, stones, skulls, plants and tiny intricate statues and artifacts adorn her windows and shelves. Her walls are embellished with collections of paintings in various shapes and sizes. She finds inspiration from her surroundings and listening to a myriad of singer/songwriters who weave together visual landscapes using their poetic voice. Early in her career she managed the studios of Encaustic painter Betsy Eby and realist painter Bo Bartlett and simultaneously graduated (Summa Cum Laude) with a Bachelor of Arts from Cornish College of the Arts, double-majoring in Painting and Photography. Her work is showcased and collected throughout the North.