ARTIST STATEMENT

Liesl’s most current solo work translates personal grief into a larger conversation about emotional literacy, familial legacy, portraiture, and natural phenomena. Whether referencing a relative since passed, or a retreating glacial vista, each piece is deliberately imbued with an intimate sense of remembrance. In considering this practice, three key words continually rise to the surface: materiality, intimacy, and gravity.

Liesl’s work is built upon emotional gesture, strengthened by the varied nature of her chosen mediums. Working primarily with glass, embroidery, prints and carefully selected mixed-media, she culls a tender language of connection between the inherent, outward qualities of each material and what they represent both personally and culturally.

She has always been drawn to glass, her queerness finding a kinship with its more unusual and dualistic properties. It is hard and soft, transparent and distorting, liquid but not really. A natural shapeshifter. It’s unique molecular structure is complex and fluctuating, and the range of viscosity from molten to solid allows for constant aesthetic and conceptual discoveries. Recent collaborative projects focus on the expression and experience of queerness in current climate.

Drawing, collage, and embroidery each offer opportunity for exploration, research, and storytelling. In works on paper, Liesl merges timelines, scales, and perspectives, creating new narratives and possibilities with a focus on nature and phenomena. Through embroidery specifically, she engages with the long tradition of creating imagery on cloth: a historical, feminine lineage speaking the language of family through the centuries.