Post 3: Interview with Le'Andra LeSeur

 

• What inspired LeSeur? Compare what motivated you to create meaning.
  How does your choice of material, process, aesthetic, content, etc, reinforce your message?

Her work is inspired from the body as the source and language embedded in it. She states that her body is a recorder and the language she uses is a space for her to reveal the things that her body has absorbed. Throughout her works of art, LeSeur has reflected her emotions with the events that has happened around her, emotions such as, grief, joy, anger, and more.  "As long as I continue coming back to the body as the source, the way I can create almost feels limitless".

             

                   Listening to LeSeur talk about the topic and intention behind her pieces, I understand the want to be able to express yourself to the audience and putting yourself as the subject. I agree that the body is like a recorder, to me it's like a journal that we tend to keep hidden and it's up to ourselves if we want to open up. I believe that events play an important part on what we create as an artist, or at least to me. 

                  

                    Throughout making my portfolio in the past years, most of my art has became almost like a diary for myself, either how I feel about the events that has happened to me that shaped me while also bringing awareness with certain issues that I bring up. When I think about how the process begins for my pieces, it usually comes up when I'm in distress, happy, and etc. When it becomes overwhelming, I listen to music and images comes up when thinking about it. Listening to music definitely brings up a lot of ideas for my art work, of course I get my ideas elsewhere as well, but music is probably one of the most influential impact to it. My art works, tend to be the subject getting close and almost personal with the audience, as to show there's nothing to hide and the audience has to face it or the subject can't hide from the audience. 

                

Interviews from "Under the Influence"

1. Who was your most important teacher?

        - Thinking about who was my most important teacher would have to be my high school art teacher. I started late with the idea of doing art as a career to pursue due to my family members constantly putting it into my head. But once I started talking and attending to my art teacher's classes, he brought me so many different opportunities I can do to be able to make art as a career.

2. Which artist has most influenced you?

        - Multiple artists have influenced me, but one of the first artists that influenced me into diving into art is Vincent Van Gogh. The vibrant colors he's used and the way he saw/imagined the subjects amazed me and how he brought life into the painting making me think that I was in there experiencing all. 

3. What is your favorite artwork?

        - I wouldn't say that I have a favorite artwork since the ones that I have seen, gives me a different feeling that is hard to compare to each other. One of my favorites is "Woman Sleeping" by Malcolm T. Liepeke.

4. What exhibition had the most influence on you?

        - I was able to go to Frida Kahlo's exhibition in Mexico as a trip with my family. It's my mom's favorite artist and she wanted me to go and see pieces of her art work, while also learning about her home and life. I was very influenced by not only her art but the way she was as well, such as, her determination. For her art, the way she expressed her inner thoughts and personal trauma. 

5. What is your favorite museum?

        - I haven't visited to many museums in the past, but, I'm starting to explore them during the past few weeks. So far, my favorite one is MOMA. 

6. What book has influenced you the most?

        - The book that has influenced me the most is a manga called "Fruits Basket", it is an older manga that I grew up on and it opened me up to art itself and the story behind each of the characters. It opened up a door for me that explored storytelling through art.

7. What other creative fields/disciplines influence you?

        - I would say literature, music, movies, and indie games. 

8. Have you ever made a choice that was influenced by someone's critique or feedback?

        - Yes I have before. I only take other people's feedback if they understand what I was trying to achieve in my piece. If they didn't understand what I was trying to achieve and tried to give me advice, it most likely wouldn't help align with my style/meaning.

9. Who do you think your influence has been as an artist?

        - I believe that the art community throughout social media and my classes have been influencing me for a while now. To see different types of art from many diverse people, definitely makes me feel pumped up and inspired.

10. Is there an experience that influenced you to become an artist?

        - The earliest memory I had that made me want to draw was because of the movie Titanic, I'm not joking lol. The specific scene was when Jack was drawing Rose, ironic. I was pretty young, maybe third grade, and I was just in love with Rose because of how beautiful she was in the movie. I decided to draw her in one of the classrooms and I remember how my "friend" at the time told me to throw it out. When I was asked about why I decided to draw her, especially because I was copying the scene where she was naked, I just said because she's beautiful. I didn't know then but, this made me want to create artwork that explored the uncomfortable, even though it's a part of human life, so it can be normalized.  

11. Which collaborators have influenced your work?

        - None that comes to my mind at the moment.

12. Which artists, living or non-living, have influenced you?

        - Cecily Brown, Vincent Van Gogh, Sonia Lazo, India Rose Crawford, and Shanna Van Maurik.

13. What writing has resonated with you over time?

        - I don't remember at the moment.

14. What's the nicest thing anyone has ever said about your art?

        - I think the nicest thing that someone has said about my art was about how much detail I've put in and how much it captured the reference. Another one was how they understood my artwork and the feeling it held in it. 

15. What advice would you give to an aspiring artist?

        - Do not overthink your worth as an artist. I've struggled with that so much growing up and I ended up self sabotaging my work and my mental health.