LESLEY BODZY
Artist Statement
Engaging with history, materiality, and abstraction, my work gives form and visibility to psychologically complex dimensions. I use a range of media—acrylic, velvet, plastic, silicone, bronze, and resin—and techniques like 3D printing, casting, pouring, and layering to explore topics like aging, beauty, and death through abstract gesture and material manipulation. Themes of trauma, loss, and desire recur throughout my practice, emerging through my deep curiosity with materials, processes, and their metaphorical and expressive potential.
In Levity and Depth, I seek to explore the abyss. By this I mean the inherent instability of language and identity. Using latex, foam and resin, I make ambiguous objects like Translucent fragility. Designed to provoke, seduce and challenge the viewer, these evocative objects from the abyss highlight the layered nature of physical and emotional intimacy.
In my Folds of Desire series, I use gold acrylic paint as a sculptural substance, adding chemicals that allow me to control the form through draping, stretching, and layering. In works like Soft Embrace I (2022), the gold acrylic behaves like a tapestry held up from behind. The phantom figure one might imagine standing behind the work is both ominous and comforting in its offer of a “soft embrace.” These sculptural paintings recall the ornate qualities of Baroque painting and architecture—their sensuous richness, drama, movement, tension, and emotional exuberance. Each piece is presented as a featured character, an abstract embodiment of a gesture, emotion, or physical form. These experimental and intuitive decisions are part of how I acknowledge and exorcize the past—both collective and personal.
I often employ a multitude of processes to achieve sumptuous textural surfaces. In my Feminine Royal series, I started by creating several unique plastic filament objects formed from a 3D print of a common crumpled paper bag. From there, I was able to make a mold of the sculpture and cast them in a translucent resin in a multitude of colors. The resulting bodily abstractions, repeated with subtle variations, create a formal echo from one to the next. Through a process akin to metamorphosis, I transformed the bag—the material’s malleability and resistance guiding me toward a subject and meaning that revealed itself in the act of making. The delicate yet resistant surfaces of Feminine Royal open up new and unpredictable associations, challenging our assumptions around vulnerability, restraint, and strength.
The titles of my works offer a point of departure—meant to guide rather than define the meaning behind each piece. While my work is deeply biographical, the aesthetic language remains open to interpretation. I often use bold colors and seductive materials to draw attention to the overlooked and barely perceptible aspects of everyday life. In my spandex series, Unfathomable limerence (2024), I memorialize women's undergarments - objects that are not made to be seen but to hide natural beauty - by filling them with an expandable foam and adorning their surfaces.
Taking inspiration from the pioneers of 1970s sculptural abstraction—Lynda Benglis’ pour paintings, Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party, and Louise Nevelson’s transformation of the everyday—I blur the lines between relief, sculpture, and painting, embracing imperfection and experimentation throughout my practice.