Carolanne Leslie is a multi disciplinary artist based in Bushwick Brooklyn, NY.
carolanne@carolanneleslie.com
Biography
Carolanne is an artist working primarily as a painter, an experimental broken glass sculptor , figurative sculptor and a video performer. Her art is driven by life's self reflective inner emotional journey: through mistakes, failure, self defeat, rebirth, perseverance and love.
Personally, she is in love with all things cats and dragonflies related. As well she is a spiritually attuned artist with a specific interest in exploring concepts of transformation and change. She believes in fostering deep connections with family, nature, friends and animals. Recently she has found profound personal gratification in painting portraits of her closest friend’s kitty cats, dogs and beloved family members who have recently passed. She is convinced that creating memorable and personal art for good sincere people is one of the most rewarding gifts of being an artist.
Carolanne’s art is in intellectual sync with her diverse background. Born in Oyster Bay , NY in 1969, she holds degrees in Psychology (University of Albany) , photography (Germain School of Photography), Fine Art (Adelphi University) and is certified to practice bio energetic healing, theta healing and transpersonal hypnosis. In addition she is a master certified hypnotist specializing in past life regression therapy.
Carolanne lives in Brooklyn NY with her partner and her 2 cats. When not creating art, she enjoys practicing hot yoga, cooking and helping anyone she can.
Artist Statement
Why am I so focused on change ? For years I have been driven towards personal change. I know I can’t help anyone else unless I help myself and be an example. Change has to start somewhere, it can start with one person and has the potential to be contagious and build into a shift in the paradigm. I want to help, I want to learn love and I want to paint love and sculpt love and create a message in my art that can be a catalyst for change. I believe deeply in civil rights and respect for all humans, nature, animals and all life forms. I wish for my work to speak to that simple wish, a wish that when given the choice, we choose to love on the first impulse, the idea that caring about each other is first on our “to do list”, second on our list, I hope for the safe expressing of our differences, respecting our differences, the understanding and acccepting that are we are all in a different emotional, psychological and spiritual space based on our experiences. Perspective and consequential behavior is based on the combination of all three makes us who we are. I aspire to accept and not judge the unique thumbprint of us all.
From that awareness in ourselves, I hope we can become aware of our defensiveness, our selfishness, our anger, our fears, our futile fight for power. Sitting with emotions that alert us to move towards change and making that important. Recognizing that emotions are natural and that we need to pay attention to them as opposed to repressing them. I hope society can one day recognize the value of gaining insights to our emotions as means of transorfmation. Accepting these emotions as a part of our journey to evolve, forgiving ourselves for for feeling them. Then choosing to make a choice to change where change is needed. Our differences can only be changed based on one guiding principle at the core, caring about each other with love and respect first, followed by the power of coming together, the power of leaning on each other. What do we all have in common? A need for love, connectedness , survival and change. We need each other, and we essentially wish to evolve whether we know it consciously or not. Choosing to learn how to take control of our emotions and focusing on the beautiful mystical question that we all have in common is the path to change, asking the age old question, why are we here, and how can we do better? This why I make art.