Virginia Leonard
Virginia Leonard curated by Chief Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia Rachel Kent and Assistant Curator Megan Robinson at Installation Contemporary, Carriageworks during Sydney Contemporary, 2017. Photography by Jacquie Manning courtesy of the artist and PAULNACHE.
All I Want Is Some Plastic Surgery, commissioned by Objectspace, Auckland, Collection of Art Gallery of New South Wales [AGNSW}, Sydney, Australia.
Virginia Leonard’s ceramics delight in the visceral. Her large vessel-like structures recall domestic everyday items, yet the familiar shapes of vases, jugs, and urns are abstracted, morphed into melting masses of sticky resin and bulging lumps.
Oozing clay, resin, and glaze forms are fired mid drip, capturing the precarious nature of Leonard’s physical approach to manipulating her chosen material, which she sees as a proxy for her own body.
Virginia Leonard, All I Want Is Some Plastic Surgery, Clay, lustre, resin & gold
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Biography
Virginia holds a Masters of Fine Arts from Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design which she completed in 2001.
In 2019 she won the Artist-in-Residence Prize in Finland, Open to Art Ceramic Award, Officine Saffi, Milan, Italy, and was the recipient of the Glass House/Stone House Residency in Chenaud, France.
In 2017 she won the Ceramic residency at Guldagergaard, Denmark. She won the Merit Award in the 2015 Portage Ceramic Awards, Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery, Auckland.
Virginia’s work has been exhibited extensively throughout Australasia and internationally, including exhibitions in Switzerland, Italy, Miami and Denmark.
Her profile is featured in the influential Thames and Hudson book 100 Sculptures of Tomorrow, and her work is held in numerous public and private collections world-wide, including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia; Chatwell Collection, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland, New Zealand; Suter Art Gallery Te Aratoi o Whakatū, Nelson, New Zealand; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia; Musée Ariana, Geneva, Switzerland; Shepparton Art Museum, Shepparton, Australia; Rigo-Saitta Collection, Geneva, Switzerland; James Wallace Arts Trust, Auckland, New Zealand; Bill Gautreaux Collection, Kansas, USA; Girls Club Collection, Miami, USA and the prestigious Ann G. Tenenbaum Collection, New York.
Ceramics
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Exhibitions
Selected exhibitions
Urns For Unwanted Limbs, Hastings City Art Gallery 2022 in association with PAULNACHE
Desgin Miami/Miami, Mindy Solomon Gallery, Miami, December 2022
Splash, Taste Contemporary, Basel, Switzerland, September 2022
Group Show, Mindy Solomon Gallery, Miami, US, September 2022
Design Miami/Paris, Side Gallery, Paris, France, October 2022
Sabotaje estético, Yusto/Giner, Madrid, Spain (group)
No One Will See Me Walk to Deny Me Grace, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, New
Zealand Exposed Material, Side Gallery, Barcelona, Spain (group)
artgenève, Taste Contemporary, Geneva, Switzerland (group)
Sculpture on the Gulf, Waiheke Island, New Zealand
Public Collections
Chartwell Collection, Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand
Suter Art Gallery Te Aratoi o Whakatu, Nelson, New Zealand
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia
Musée Ariana, Geneva, Switzerland
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Shepparton Art Museum, Shepparton, Australia
James Wallace Arts Trust, Auckland, New Zealand
Girls Club Collection, Miami, USA
Residencies
Glass House/Stone House, Chenaud, France
Guldagergaard - International Ceramic Research Centre, Denmark
Publications
Stonehouse-France, Glasshouse-Australia.’ Artist Residency 2019. Published 2023 Stonehouse-Glasshouse 03. Texts Kathy Marks, Antje Geczy and Michael Schwarz
Contemporary Hum. ‘Don’t Learn Anything More’. 26.10.2021. Essay by Connie Brown
Officine Saffi Award 4. 2020-2021 Published by Officine Saffi, 2022. Introduction by Laura Borghi
Ceramics Art + Perception #113
Ceramics New Zealand, Volume 1 issue 2, Essay by Kim Paton
The Journal of Australian Ceramics, Vol 57 No1, Essay by Anna Briers
Art New Zealand. ‘Mind, Body, Action’. Vol 183/Spring 2022. Essay by Connie Brown
100 Sculptures of Tomorrow, Thames & Hudson
100 Sculptors of Tomorrow Kurt Beers, Richard Cork
Articles
Australian Art Collector
Collectors Love: 50 Things You Need To Know, 2017
Review: Download PDF [1.6MB]
Contemporary HUM
Link: “Don’t Learn Anything More!” Virginia Leonard’s Fugly Ceramics by Connie Brown
Review: Download PDF [4.2MB]
Video
Watch and listen to sculptor Virginia Leonard in her home and studio. Her work has been described as both 'revolting and beautiful' with her practice involving an exploration of the human body and its processes. “I can develop an artistic language that I own. I see that as a potisive thing, because I see my work as optimistic and positive – which is a bit like me really.” Virginia was a finalist in the 2016 Wallace Art Awards from which this episode was created.