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Joanna E Levesley
UK
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“As a child, I was fascinated with linear forms and structures and the infinite possibilities that they presented.”
Joanna E Levesley is a self-taught contemporary artist, who lives and works in Sheffield, England. For her 11th birthday, she was given a set of French curves which lit up a whole new way of drawing for her. These curved plastic shapes allowed her to experiment and create endless designs.
Killing Time | Ink
NFS
33 X 24
Our ever-increasing desire to harness every second of our lives by filling every moment with the banal or the sublime. By chasing the minutes and hours relentlessly, and thrashing the life out of them, only then can we say, ‘we were here, and we have lived!’.
Joanna has had no formal training within the creative industries as pursuing a career in art after leaving school was never an option. She was strongly advised to seek office work and leave art behind as it ‘didn’t put food on the table’. This of course didn’t stop her creative abilities and she engaged herself in theatre and design after office hours.
The Rhythm of Life | Ink
NFS
38 X 54
The multifaceted trials and tribulations of our own lives are rhythmically intertwined with those close to us and those around us.
This included costume design for amateur shows and working behind the scenes in various theatres. She also wrote, produced, and directed a musical for the department in the hospital where she worked at the time of the new millennium. Many years later Joanna decided to pick up her French curves and begin drawing again during her spare time.
“Over time I developed my own style of representation using my much loved ‘linear’ counterpart, which allowed me to create more complex compositions.”
Her inspiration comes in many forms and sizes from all Joanna sees and hears around her. She paints and draws with various mediums and in various styles, the most distinctive using pen and ink. Color is used but more often she leans towards monochromatic expression.
BOWIE | Ink
NFS
24 X 33
A personal appreciation of the musician and artist that is Bowie.
A lowly field mouse offered sanctuary by the wild and sprawling habitat of nature.
Field Mouse | Ink
NFS
12 X 17
Her work captures the eye drawing you in to explore further, captivating her audience with hidden detail, almost fractal in nature, the more you look the more you’ll see. She sees music as a 3D form rather than a sound and this is illustrated in many of her works, giving the pieces their own personality and performance. She has always aspired to create complex pieces to draw people in to observe the world from her mind’s eye.
“My work is inspired and influenced by the surrealistic approach of Salvador Dali and M.C. Escher.”
“Most of my work evolves purely from my imagination and the subject matter from whatever piques my interest at that moment in time, be it nature, music, objects, or pure fantasy.”
Joanna mainly works with black and white pen and ink drawings as well as acrylic painting, resulting in dramatic and surrealistic compositions that evoke an intricate, mysterious world. As an artist, she believes in using complex lines to create powerful concepts.
HELL-ta Skelta | Mixed Media
NFS
17 X 24
The ultimate fairground distraction.
Her work is driven by the passion to capture the underlying beauty and energy of things by honing into the fundamental line and exploring the limitless possibilities of the imagination. They are an investigation into representations of situations as well as depictions and ideas that can only be realized in drawing, never showing the complete structure.
Dragon | Ink
NFS
12 X 17
Fantasy illustration.
The results are deconstructed to the extent that meaning is shifted and possible interpretation becomes multifaceted therefore manipulating the viewer to create confusion without being hindered by the historical reality.
Using the power of musical movement to create an abstraction of an instrument.
Le Grand | Ink
NFS
12 X 17
“This creates intense personal moments masterfully created using rules and omissions, acceptance and refusal, luring the viewer round and round in circles.”
Organised Chaos | Ink
NFS
24 X 17
The constant changes in our social infrastructures on close examination may seem like utter chaos, but each element plays its part in the bigger and broader picture.
By examining the ambiguity and origination via abstraction, she tries to increase the dynamic between the audience and the author by objectifying emotions and investigating the duality that develops through different interpretations.
The interwoven faces of the zodiac sign of Gemini.
Gemini | Ink
NFS
12 X 17
Her works isolate the movements of humans and/or objects. By doing so, new sequences are created which reveal an inseparable relationship between motion and sound. Again and again, the artist leaves us orphaned with a mix of conflicting feelings and thoughts. By applying abstraction, she often creates works, upon which thoughts that have apparently just been developed are manifested, bending the mind to believing that what you have just seen is pure illusion, drawing you back to view over and over.
SAX |Ink
NFS
12 X 17
The fluid motion of the instrument becomes inseparable from the music itself.
“I am devoted to working with abstract, fantasy pieces and aim to explore the beauty of the human spirit through my art.”
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