Artist Statement

As a landscape painter living at the turn of the millennium, I am a preservationist of a threatened world.  I paint in the dawn and through the changing light of the day the endangered natural and agricultural vistas.  As people speed ever faster through their lives, spend their days and nights in human-made environments, I capture in oil paint the bend of prairie grass heavy with seeds, the color of the sumac flaming in an autumn dusk, the light on the snow of a wintry woods.

I have been a landscape painter for almost 30 years. I began my work in the Flint Hills of Kansas, painted coastal New England for many years, and now make my home outside of Lake Mills, Wisconsin, with my husband, Steve Bower.

As a painter of the natural world, old architecture, and gardens, I've found our new home to be perfect. We built it on an old farm site that overlooks an Audubon Sanctuary prairie and the Crawfish River. We moved a nearly century-old town hall to our property in 2003 and turned it into a studio/gallery/woodworking shop. Our house is solar and we are in the process of surrounding it with flower and vegetable gardens. Maybe someday we will have the time to resurrect the old orchard!

Living here I do not have far to look for inspiration. Every morning the sun rises over the prairie with the river beyond reflecting back the color of the sky. Every sunrise is a new painting. The natural world has always been a source of wonder and delight for me. After these many years of painting I still seek to capture the beauty that I see every day. Each painting is a poem of gratitude.

I love old architecture and the sense of history and life stories that it represents. I find more grace in the simple lines of an old barn than I do in most recent structures. I appreciate the jumble of shapes and colors of a flower garden and the orderly rows of a vegetable plot. The light on an old building changing as the day passes, the garden coming to fruition and fading with the season ─ these are the transitory moments that you will find in my work.

I pay attention. I paint the wonder of the world.

Leslie DeMuth

Leslie DeMuth painting on location at Buddy's Farm.

Leslie DeMuth

Exhibitions

2003 Wood and Field, One Person Show, Green Lantern Studios, Mineral Point
2003 Midwest Winter, Center for the Visual Arts, Wausau, WI
2002 Rustic Wisconsin. One Person Show, Lands End Gallery, Dodgeville, WI
2002 Solstice. Group Show, Green Lantern Studios, Mineral Point, WI
2002 Restoration: A Vision For The Land. One Person Show, University of Wisconsin
Arboretum, Madison, Wisconsin.
2002 Culture and Agriculture 2002, New Visions Gallery, Marshfeld, WI
2001 Living on the Prairie, Living on the Plains, Coutts Museum, El Dorado, KS
2001 Art Garden Too, Paine Art Center and Gardens, Oshkosh, WI
2001 Midwest Winter, Center for the Visual Arts, Wausau, WI
2000 Culture and Agriculture 2000, New Visions Gallery, Marshfield, WI
1998 Featured Artist, Edgewood Orchard Galleries, Fish Creek, Wisconsin
1995 Two Person Show, Grace Chosy Gallery, Madison, Wisconsin
1992 One Person Show, Grace Chosy Gallery , Madison Wisconsin
1989 One Person Show, Union Gallery, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
1989 One Person Show, Goldsmith-Cardel Gallery, Cincinnati, Ohio
1989 One Person Show, Old Town Hall, Salem, MA
1988 One Person Show, Old Town Hall, Salem, MA
1987 Essex Institute Harvest Festival
1986 One Person Show, Arnould Gallery, Marblehead, Massachusetts
1984 One Person Show, East India Mall, Salem, Massachusetts
1983 Three Person show, Bradley Gallery , Milwaukee, WI
1982 National Juries Landscape Show, Terrance Galley, Palenville, New York
1982 58th Annual Rockford and Vicinity Juries Exhibition, Burpee Art Museum,
Rockford, Illinois.
1981 American Art: The Challenge of the Land, Pillsbury Center, Minneapolis,
Minnesota.
1981 National Landscape Competition, William E, Tolley Gallery, Washington DC

Grants:
Salem Arts Lottery Grant, 1988, 1986,1984

Collections:
Bank of Boston Pillsbury Company, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Salem State College Hamilton Hall, Salem, Massachusetts
Boston Center for Adult Education, Boston, Massachusetts
University Hospital, Madison, Wisconsin

Education:
1981 Master of Fine Arts, University of Wisconsin, Madison,
1977 Bachelor of Arts, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas