Leah Thiessen

Guided by instinct, the artist’s palette can change several times during the course of making a single painting. “There are times I have seen my work move from very dark brooding colours to a whitewash of paint,” she explains. “I’m not attached to the image; I’m more interested in the process of abstraction. I lose myself in the work and try to find my way back.” Some canvases start off bare, while others are revisited. The bigger the canvas, the greater chance of surrendering to this creative process.

Thiessen isn’t beholden to a single medium. Moving between oil paint, spray paint, enamel, pencils, oil sticks and ink across large canvases, the artist builds thick layers that juxtapose the fine base of raw linen or canvas. The resolute magnetism of each piece is testament to the artist’s acute awareness of this layering, as well as the accretion of time and discipline required to produce works that combine a melange of colour yet culminate in sustained surfaces and compositional balance. Words fall short to describe this approach, it is purely intuitive.