“Humor consists in coping with the self, engaging all the derision we’re capable of to shake our picturesque character trapped in his own situation. When we are the authors of this dreadful situation then the derision sublimes itself with irony.
As an artist, the position adopted by Leland Leichman might fall within that type of irony, based upon what is known as autofiction. But in his case the process is somehow reversed. His paintings don’t represent or narrate anyone story, instead they indicate the plot for Leichman to move in.
Leland Leichman starts from his own genuine conception of what the artist’s work is - based on how it has been narrated throughout history - and methodically creates his own art by seizing and appropriating a great deal of formal rules, techniques, and strategies associated with a wide range of historical artistic experiences. Everything concours to Leichman act of painting, from the straight edge use of a conceptual protocol - all of Leichman’s paintings result from following a strict protocol based on the relation between numbers, dates and possibilities organized on a grid - to the materiality and energy of American abstract expressionism, the relentless and passionate practice of the portrait, or the opposite contemporary drawing with tongue-in-cheek. His endeavor is to resolve this saturation of signs we have been given materializing the inquiry: “How to be an artist”.
Poking at the common vocabulary of tutorials, a number of Leichman’s drawings and paintings are titled “How to…”. These titles, followed by some uncanny experiences to be learned, are always visible on the surface of the artwork: How To No, How to be ugly and alone, How to be ugly and smart and stupid and alone, How to live alone in a house of 100,000 books, How to count, How to be friends, How to move gently, expanding your capacity to love yourself and others, How to die and be forgotten…
By running them through the painted surface, Leichman once more inverted the process, in this case the one of question/answer. All interrogation seems assertively dodged by the artist, who with wise humor incarnates the learner and the expert at once. Again, Leland Leichman tells stories, with heroes and mentors - the audience might as well be his nemesis as it should be.
Art critic Roberta Smith explained that "Cy Twombly is a great painter, but sometimes it seems even more accurate to describe him as a great writer." Leland Leichman is a great painter because he always tells us the genuine story of what great artists do. “
David Liver, 2022
in my own words:
I make abstract paintings, regularly draw figure models, and every Saturday do a portrait or ten on donation (Dána) at the market.
My work is authentic, poetic, and playful.
I want my work to be naive, as if I’m not presenting art at all, but some kind of nascent, unborn sense of space and history.
Why do I create both abstract and figurative art?
I’ve explored both abstract and observational art in many ways over the years, and I’ve consciously chosen a middle path—not one of dilution, but of dichotomy. i do both, separately, and they inform and enrich each other precisely because they remain distinct.
