Leila Galloway is an artist based in Leicestershire. She studied BA Fine Art at Manchester Polytechnic (1986), and two Higher Diplomas, one in Fine Art from the Slade, UCL and the other in Aesthetics and Art Theory from Kingston University. She teaches Fine Art at De Montfort University, and has exhibited nationally and internationally, participating in various group and solo shows, recently at the LCB Depot in Leicester as artist in residence and the Extractor Space in London.
Describe your practice for us:
My practice includes drawing, sculpture, and sound within installation, to investigate elegiac, somatic qualities through material form. The installations have as their anchor a formal engagement with space/place, emphasizing the visual and the physical over the distractions of description and narrative.
I am interested in states of flux, as translations of various physical states and the way things appear to flow in an unending series of fleeting moments of suspension. Attention to detail through the repetition of tiny forms and patterns of sound creates a feeling of obsessive thoroughness contrasting with an anarchic sense of the boundless possibilities inherent in a loss of control.
How long have you been practising?
Since graduating from Manchester Polytechnic in 1986.
What is the most interesting/inspiring thing you have seen/been to over the last month, and why?
Half Way Directed by Daisy-May Hudson. 2015, UK, 93min
It’s really great to see someone that you know make a potent/politically current documentary film about her family’s experience of being homeless. Her film really hit a nerve with me (I have two children), especially when her younger sister talks about feeling embarrassed and not wanting her friends to find out she lives in a hostel when going to school. This is a reminder to all of how insecure the housing situation has become under the current Government.
Which other artists’ work do you admire, and why?
Fra Angelico’s The Mocking of Christ, 1440, San Marco, Florence. This is the most beautiful and powerful work, which has had an enduring effect upon my practice. Whilst in receipt of the Boise scholarship, after graduating, I spent many hours in this museum admiring and learning from the work.
The artist’s frescos were painted in private spaces of monks’ cells and were intended to help the praying monks to envisage the scenes of their devotion. The power of the work cannot be seen or experienced out of context; it is an excellent example of art/installation whose content and form cannot be separated.
Where can people see your work?
None of my work exists beyond its exhibition, so it has to be experienced in situ; however you can see documentation of past work on my website.
Leila was first interviewed in January 2016.
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