FOR THE TIME BEING, THIS EXHIBITION WILL BE AVAILABLE TO SEE ONLINE. APPOINTMENTS TO SEE THINGS IN PERSON CAN BE MADE IN ONE HOUR APPOINTMENTS DAILY. (See our COVID-19 VISIT / DELIVERY / PICKUP PROTOCOL)
Sullivan Goss is excited to announce the Gallery’s first solo exhibition for contemporary artist Leslie Lewis Sigler. Between 2011 and 2018, when Sigler relocated from Santa Barbara to Soquel, California, her work could be seen at various venues throughout the area. Her portraits of heirloom silverware became local icons and have since been received with great enthusiasm at art fairs in Miami, Chicago, and Palm Springs. This exhibition marks her triumphant return to the area that gave her an art career in the first place.
According to the artist, this silver heirloom portrait series “is rooted in family and connection – how we belong together.” Once cherished and entrusted with family stories that have accumulated through the generations, Sigler notes that “many have been overlooked or even forgotten.”
Sigler first started painting this series in 2011, when she came across a full tea set in the living room of a fellow Millenial. It was strikingly unusual and inspired the artist to create a quadtych of the whole set. At home, the artist had one antique silver butter chiller that had been given to her by her grandmother, but when she received a chased and filigreed spoon from the same grandmother the following year, the artist notes that “the seed had been planted, even if it took a while to grow.”
Although the artist had been interested in painting stark, graphic still life images of antiques since her college days, something about the silver heirloom portraits resonated more deeply. A receptive market and positive feedback sealed the deal.
Giving her paintings names like The Obsessive, The Score Keeper, or The Emissary, this series became less about still life and more about portraiture. The names suggest family archetypes. Sigler suggests that the reflections, meanwhile, are “tiny distorted self portraits of [me] as [I] navigates where [I} belong.”
Leslie Lewis Sigler earned a BFA from the University of Texas at Austin in 2006. She relocated to Los Angeles the same year, where she worked for a design firm. In 2008, the artist relocated with her husband to Santa Barbara. In 2011, she began painting her portraits of heirlooms and gained an immediate following from numerous small exhibitions throughout the area. She has since become a mother of two. She has been represented in New York and in Santa Barbara, but now lives and works in Soquel, California. Sullivan Goss has worked with the artist since the 2011 100 GRAND exhibition.
