Paso Robles artist exhibiting at SLO Museum of Art
Exhibit opens Nov. 18
– The San Luis Obispo Museum of Art presents Intersecting California’s National Parks, an exhibition of paintings by Paso Robles artist Leslie Love Stone on view from Nov. 18 until Jan. 29, 2017.
Stone is a conceptual painter and former banking executive. Her exhibition at the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art comprises a series of artworks based, in part, on the nine national parks in California. Each painting serves as a supporting argument to the artist’s thesis that in order to cherish and preserve nature, we must connect with it. With colors ranging from Death Valley’s muted neutrals to Lassen Volcanic’s stunning blues and greens, the artist seeks to create a seductive example of California landscape meeting California hard edge.
Stone’s paintings are deeply complex and imbued with coded meanings that can be unraveled like a mystery novel, according to the aritst. To collect her color palettes, she matched the colors of the soil and vegetation from the national parks with a pantone color book. Consulting with a botanist, soil scientist, and instructional support technician from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Stone determined the visible soil, visible vegetation, and precipitation percentages. She then summarized and sterilized the information into data, transforming it into geometric shapes using her own number representation system. She provides metaphorical clues for each piece: a popular book title, the colors found in the national park, and the meanings of those colors. Painting on wood panels, she mixes a full spectrum (including black) of Flashe, a highly pigmented, water-based paint from just three hues—red, yellow, blue—to underline the limitations of what we can know and what we still have to learn.
In celebration of the 100th birthday of the National Park Service, Stone seeks to help expand interest in visual arts, science and scientific research, and our national parks, and, ultimately, educate and communicate how these areas overlap and benefit each other.
Stone is a graduate of Claremont Graduate University’s MFA program and recipient of the Karl and Beverly Benjamin Fellowship in Art. She received her MBA from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, with concentrations in marketing and international business, and her Bachelor of Science degree in finance and economics from the University of Nevada, Reno. She also holds a degree in graphic design from Cuesta College.
A public opening of the exhibition will take place on Saturday, Nov. 19 from 3–5 p.m. Stone will also give an ARTalk and exhibition tour at SLOMA on Saturday, Dec. 3 from 2–3 p.m. SLOMA ARTalks are free and open to the public.
The San Luis Obispo Museum of Art, dedicated to the education, presentation and preservation of the visual arts on the Central Coast, is located at 1010 Broad Street, on the west end of Mission Plaza. Admission is free; donations are appreciated. For more info, visit SLOMA.org.
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