Leah Bartholomew’s art is like an east coast Australian summer. Colourful, bold and full of light; we reckon you can almost feel the lick of a sea breeze and buzz of cicadas. After doing some reading on Leah, we’re actually not too far off the mark. Based in Coolangatta in south east Queensland, Leah is a practising artist and designer and her work is a response to her everyday interactions with the environment surrounding her. So yes, that means bush walks, roaring waves and oceanic beauties, warm rocks and blinding blue skies.
The work is clean, bright and optimistic and arrives from humble, balanced beginnings. Each painting starts with a walk, where Leah soaks up her life surroundings. Leah then hits the studio, tearing up paper into small pieces, playing an intuitive puzzle game where she creates abstract representations of all she’s soaked up. Landscapes and life are revealed through these colours and shapes which are dependant on her mood and environments. These small paper collages then inform the larger scale paintings, which are a vast planes of flat, full colour.
Leah’s background in fine arts, textiles and graphic design makes her one multi-disciplined lady. Her flexi aesthetic and skill set has seen her collaborate with the likes of Gorman and Inside Out magazine and even featured in the revered Design Files open house. As well as her own art practise which encompasses her paintings and privately commissioned large scale murals, Leah also purveys homewares under the name Beneath The Sun. Is there any sun-struck stone left untouched by this lady? Surely not!
See more of Leah Bartholomew’s work on her website and Instagram.
