Taking inspiration from her home in Marrakesh, Laurence Leenaert's paintings are a tapestry of different colours, textures and techniques, infused with the joy and the chaos of the city. Argile et Rêves will be Laurence Leenaert's second solo exhibition with Cadogan Gallery following the huge success of Qalb Dari in 2021 and will run from the 15th of September until the 8th of October.
These new artworks distil Leenaert's experience of Marrakesh, her home since moving to develop her studio in 2015. Oilstick, wool embroidery and leather, all sourced locally and inspired by the colours and landscapes of Morocco, are combined to create harmonious, multi-dimensional paintings. Leenaert eschews the use of digital tools or machine led interventions. Designed and made entirely by her own hand, her paintings are a showcase of her myriad skills. She composes her paintings intuitively moving between mediums as she weaves, sews and makes gestural applications of clay and paint to her canvases. Contrasting materials and colours are layered and revised until a poetic harmony is found, developed over an extended period of time. Finding freedom in the city's sense of timelessness, Leenaert admits to working impulsively, destroying more work than she makes. With a fluid method employed across her canvases, aspects from each painting often swapping and changing, her works reflect the spontaneous environment she works in.
It is through her artworks that Leenaert aims to explore the harmony of the city's architecture; the uniform pink of the riads and the vibrant intensity of colour in the Moroccan sun. Naive use of line and unruly geometry run counterpoint to an intuitive wisdom of how light and form are revealed in nature. Her paintings shift from impressions of light, colour and atmosphere, to compositions inhabited by moving motifs. In Argile et Rêves, her most recent body of work, the artist pushes the boundaries of her imagination to combine her distinctive colour blocks with linear–and more figurative–forms.
Laurence Leenaert's paintings are a distillation of her myriad skills. Designed, painted, and woven entirely by her own hand, the works take inspiration from local Moroccan crafting techniques and natural materials. Leenaert eschews the use of digital tools and machine-led interventions, believing in a purely tactile approach to her work. Building up abstract, three dimensional works with acrylic paint, wool yarn, and cotton patches on rough burlap canvas, embroidery and weaving are incorporated into her painting practice to create expressive compositions. Her naïve indeterminate line and unruly geometric forms are balanced by an effortlessly refined sense of composition. These minimal marks made on a heavily textured canvas become almost reminiscent of cave paintings, hieroglyphs, and runic inscriptions from ancient worlds.
Cadogan is an independent contemporary art gallery with spaces in London, Hampshire and Milan. For over forty years our mission has been to represent, support and curate the work of a diverse roster of emerging and established artists. We care deeply about longevity, developing the careers of our artists and the journey of our collectors.
