ARTIST STATEMENT
Making the quilt paintings has been a pleasurably calm and controlled respite during an uneasy and uncontrollable year. Additionally, they give me an opportunity to focus on precision and form within a practice that otherwise thrives on swirling, unpredictable elements of chaos. Quilt geometry has been a part of my practice and sensibility since I started sewing lessons at age seven. Its history, techniques, and forms have persisted in every aspect of my work, embodied in sculpture, writing, performance, and now painting.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Leslie Rogers is a visual and performance artist based in Detroit. Her background is in puppetry and quilting, with degrees from the Maryland Institute College of Art (BFA) and Virginia Commonwealth University’s Sculpture & Extended Media program (MFA).
She has shown or performed at The Hammer Museum and Human Resources in LA; Threewalls, Links Hall, and ACRE TV in Chicago; The Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh; The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Cave, Public Pool, and Wasserman Projects in Detroit; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Vox Populi, AUX, AWFUL Wrestling, Little Berlin, Fjord, Practice, Bodega, and International House, in Philadelphia; as well as out of her van over a 9000-mile ‘Merikan Merkintile tour with musician Nelly Kate. While based in Philadelphia, she was a curatorial member of Little Berlin gallery and organized touring performances with Puppet Uprising. She was a founding member of the PuppeTyranny theater collective.
She has been awarded artist residencies at ACRE, Marble House, AS220, Art Farm Nebraska, Mildred’s Lane, Aunt Karen’s Farm, the University Musical Society at the University of Michigan, and a three-year postdoctoral research fellowship from the Michigan Society of Fellows at the University of Michigan.
© Leslie Rogers