Lesley Reppeteaux is a Paris based painter, curator, and comic book artist for Slave Labor Graphics. Her feminine work is a realization of an imagined world of female protagonists, like a mix between underwater fairy tales and an Art Nouveau, vaudevillian underworld.
SG: Lesley, what's your background and what have you been up to all your life?
LR: I've pretty much been drawing and painting since I was a wee Lesley. I was born in Nova Scotia, Canada and then my fam moved to Las Vegas when I was a teen. I was lucky enough to have a public Art Academy open up right when I was in 10th grade, so I was saved from a normal curriculum early in life.
After highschool I went to RMCAD (Rocky Mountain School of Art and Design) in Denver and studied Illustration - from there my hubs and I moved to Los Angeles. For the last few years I have been focusing on my painting and working in comics (I write and draw the series Outlook: Grim and Screwtooth both on the label Slave Labor Graphics.)
Last week, we moved yet again for more adventures. Now we are living in Paris and soakin' up the beauty and fromage of France. I move a lot.
SG: Yay, Francophiles! So, tell me a little bit about the materials, scale and statement of your work.
LR: I work with Acyrlic paint on wood that I cut out to make interesting shapes. The biggest pieces I have done are 15 -20 foot murals, where the smallest is about an inch or two, I would guess. Normally I'm in the 2 - 3 foot range. Most importantly, [regarding my mission as an artist] I want my work to inspire the wonder of storytelling and to strike a balance between the lovely and bizarre.
SG: What is the most important aspect of making art for you?
LR: There are so many important parts to it. The indefinable reasons, the process, the details, the obsession of painting, the need to weave a tale.
SG: What inspires your work?
LR: Hmmm...music, literature, history, observing life and human/animal nature, fiction and fact, tidbits of this and that.
SG: What do you do when you feel drained of ideas/inspiration?
LR: Chocolate and coffee - the heavenly cocoa bean.
SG: What's next for you and your work?
LR: Lots of exciting things down the pipe. I've designed a hoodie for an amazing artist-driven clothing company that should be out this fall. In December will be my 6-person group show at La Luz de Jesus in Hollywood followed by Solo shows at ThinkSpace Gallery in Silverlake and M Modern in Palm Springs. Mostly, fun stuff ahead. And more moving.
This interview was conducted by boygirlpartay, a painter and proprietor of website boygirlparty.com. She too moves a lot and is currently in Paris.
boygirlpartay
San Diego, CA
June 2006
SEP 02, 2006 02:08 AM