Lesley Anne Spowart "Canine Triptych I" Acrylic Collage on Board, Dog Painting in Cream and Red, Carmel California Art, Original 12 X 12 Inches, 2024

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A deep blue dog with long, thin legs stands at the right of a butter-cream ground, its coat scratched with … Read more A deep blue dog with long, thin legs stands at the right of a butter-cream ground, its coat scratched with a network of fine dark lines. Beside it rise a tall red form banded in maroon, a broad cream silhouette like a spreading wing, and a block of pale pink at the left. A tiny blue shape perches at the top right edge, and a sliver of patterned paper is set into the paint near the center. Spowart works mainly on paper or board, and here the cream is dragged and scumbled so that the layers beneath show through at the edges.

The cream, red and blue palette gives this small piece a classic, graphic feel that suits a den, a study or a dining room. It looks well against warm white walls, beside a leather chair, or above a bookshelf with a few ceramics nearby. The blue offers a cool counterpoint to wood tones and rust-colored upholstery, and the square format fits tight spots such as a stair landing.

Acrylic collage on board, 12 x 12 x 1 in (30.5 x 30.5 x 2.5 cm). Unframed.

Lesley Anne Spowart combines acrylic paint with collaged paper on board, pressing pieces into the wet surface and working over them until paper and paint read as one skin. She sands, scrapes and scratches back through the layers, and her wider practice draws on printmaking, photographic xerography, beeswax and tar. She works in a Monterey studio housed in a retired wine cellar.

Lesley Anne Spowart grew up on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and earned a B.A. in Art History from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, before graduate study at UC Davis, UC Riverside and Cal State Fullerton, where she studied museum practice and exhibition design. As a student she helped install works by artists including Sol LeWitt, Beatrice Wood and Viola Frey. She lives in Monterey, California, where she and her husband raised three children.

A self-described colorist, she works in beeswax, tar, photographic xerography, acrylic and collage, painting abstractions, landscapes and animals in a studio set in a retired wine cellar. She has exhibited widely on the Monterey Peninsula and nationally, including at the Monterey Museum of Art, and her work is held in collections including Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula and Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital. She was voted Best Local Artist by the Monterey County Weekly in 2010. See less