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Gray-Pitt, Leesa - Goddess Ascending - 2019
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Quarantine

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Quarantine on Lazaretto Island, Menorca Spain

17th - 23rd April, 2023

Quarantine: Exploring the Muse Hacking Masterclass

13th January, 2023

Help Leesa get to Spain with her Go Fund Me.

November, 2022

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Artist Profile

Bio

Leesa is a figurative artist who writes when the grief is too overwhelming to paint and paints when she can’t find the words, pouring her emotions onto the canvas. Art has been her therapy and catharsis through the living nightmare of child loss, painting and writing her journey through trauma to find the spiritual feminine.


Drawing portraits since her teens, Leesa decided to follow her passion for art and fashion and use real faces as her canvas, winning Hair and Makeup Artist of the Year 2003. Having worked on many famous faces and in fashion, television and bridal, she started painting faces on canvas in 2016 to deal with the death of her beautiful daughter Star Dawn. 


One of the highlights of Leesa’s career was an artist residency at Chateau Orquaveaux, France, in 2019. Living at the chateau for four weeks with artists from around the world was a dream come true and an experience she will never forget. She was also Vice President for RedWest Creative Co-op, which was extremely rewarding and provided many opportunities to learn skills that will help her career as an artist.


Obtaining her Master of Fine Arts degree in 2021, Leesa has pushed the boundaries of her practice exploring different techniques and mediums. The growth in her practice shows in her latest pieces. Inspired by fashion, mythology, and the occult, Leesa purposely sources materials such as textiles, fashion magazines and photographs to explore how society measures gender, ideas of power and notions of beauty. Similarly, she uses text as a reminder of how the spoken word can propel change for future generations. 


Leesa aims to empower the intersectional feminine identity by painting women who inspire, adorning them with gems, butterflies and flowers, symbolic of the fraught relationship women have to beauty, innocence, protection and patriarchy.  “Importantly I use them as separate components that may stand on their own or to an idea of interconnectedness, overlapping identities and intersectionality.  My objective being to arrange them to form a harmonious artwork that links all of these elements together.”


Leesa has participated in several group exhibitions, finally having her first solo show in 2021at BlackCat Gallery.  Leesa’s intention has always been to capture the likeness of her subjects - Painting faces, either on canvas or in the flesh, will always be a constant source of pleasure and her true passion!

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Leesa acknowledges the Bunurong and Wadawurrung people who always have and always will belong to the rivers, stars, hills, and red soils of this Country where Wyndham City is being built. May my words and actions lead us to respect Country, learn from Elders, and practice creative wisdom for future generations.

Art Portfolio

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CV

EDUCATION AND TRAINING

2021 - Completed Master of Fine Art Degree

2020 - Commenced Master of Fine Art at RMIT Melbourne

2019 - I am an Artist Course at Arts Assist South Melbourne

2017 - Oils one on one with Caroline Esbenshade

2016 - Acrylics Workshop with Caroline Esbenshade

         - Life Drawing Classes at Saltwater Community Centre

2014 - Diploma of Cosmetic Tattooing

2003 - Certificate II in Makeup Artistry

         - Certificate in Dress Style Hair

         

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

2021 - Co-curate, organise and promote RedWest $50-$500 group exhibition

2020 - Curate, organise and promote RedWest Artist Aid Bushfire Relief Art Auction/Exhibition

2019 - Voted as Vice President for Red West Creative Co operative

         - Co-curate, organise and promote RedWest PrimoRed group exhibition

         - Artist in Residence at Chateau Orquevaux France 2nd to 30th May


EXHIBITIONS

2021 - RedWest PrimoRed 2 Group Exhibition 2nd - 23rd July at C & H Gallery, Melbourne 

         - Solo Exhibition ‘The Seven (not so) Deadly Sins’ at Black Cat Gallery 18th - 28th February

         - RedWest Group Exhibition $50-$500 at Sunshine Art Space 

2019 - NOW, WEST Group Exhibition 15th - 23rd November Longspace Gallery 

         - RedWest PrimoRed Group Exhibition 8th Nov - 7th Dec C&H Gallery 

         - All The Things That Remain Group Exhibition September NOIR Darkroom

2016 - Throw Up Your Art Exhibition- Colourbox Studios


COMMISSIONS

2020 - Missy pet portrait for Katelyn Matheson

           Double pet portrait for Jo Hall

           Grandparents portrait for private collector

2019 - Bailey pet portrait for Katelyn Matheson

2018 - Libertee De la Femme for private collector

         - Joker and Haley Quinn for private collector

         - Pretty Girls Kisses for private collector

2017 - Wall Art for Cake Creations by Kate Cake shop

        

GRANTS AND AWARDS

2019 - Shortlisted in the Wyndham Art Prize

2018 - Denis Diderot (A-i-R) Grant Artist in Residence at Chateau Orquevaux France May 2019    

         - Community Pathways Scholarship Grant from Wyndham City Council         

2003 - Hair and Makeup Artist of the Year


PUBLICATIONS AND REVIEWS

2021 - Star Weekly for first solo exhibition at BlackCat Gallery

2020 - Star Weekly for RedWest Artist Aid Bushfire Relief Art Auction/Exhibition

2019 - Star Weekly for primoRed group exhibition

2018 - Wyndham Star Weekly for Chateau Orquevaux 

         - Article and video in Our Voice - Mercy Health Newsletter

2017 - Artworks published on Galphia online gallery www.galphia.com 

         - Published interview and art in Not Random Art Magazine

         - RED Redux installation art for Wyndham City “Heart of Armour”


PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS

2019 - MAVA Collective

2018 - RedWest Creative Co-op   

         - NAVA

Hair and Makeup Portfolio

Media Attention

Articles and Interviews

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Contact

Please get in touch for more information about Leesa Gray-Pitt, to discuss commissions, possible collaborations, or for any inquiries regarding artwork or hair and makeup.

0408257304

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