Lesley Vance, Untitled (2015). Oil on linen, 19 x 22 3/4 x 1 inches Image photographed by Fredrik Nilsen and courtesy of the artist, David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles, and Xavier Hufkens, Brussels.
'We are drinking beer, right? Because I'm celebrating,' Lesley Vance says to me when I arrive at her house in the Laurel Canyon neighborhood of Los Angeles. It is a Sunday afternoon and she is relieved to have finished a body of work to send to her gallery. 'I didn't prepare a whole meal like Terry Winters did for you!' she laughs — a half-hearted disclaimer — as she washes strawberries and takes out a round of delicious local soft cheese and dark toasted crackers to set on the dining table for us.
Her home, where she lives with her husband, the sculptor Ricky Swallow, is approached through a hairpin turn on a vertiginous narrow street. The hillside outdoors is verdant, and the inside is tightly designed and curated: a mix of mid-century and Roy McMakin furniture, record players and shelves of vinyl, art books, and an impressive, eclectic collection of contemporary ceramics. On the floor in front of the fireplace is a hearth installed by her husband made of glazed tiles painted by ceramicist Magdalena Frimkess.