BIOGRAPHY
LEE-ANN HEATH
(b. 1975 Durban, South Africa)
Her lush botanical paintings stem from Lee-Ann Heath’s love for impasto oil paint, nature and connection. Using her surroundings as a point of departure, Heath draws on inspiration both natural and relational. Lee-Ann Heath’s desire is to recreate, analyse and deconstruct sensation.
When working with such thick paint, the challenge of finding the right balance between confident brush and palette knife strokes and moments of vulnerability becomes integral to Heath’s process, with the continuous rearrangements of colours and forms lifting and enhancing each other, layer upon layer. The work reflects an obsessive urge to find the right combination of colour, line and shape. As Heath explains: “I find the elements of surprise and unexpected accidental moments exciting, and when the accidental meets the intentional it often leads to the identity of the work coming unto its own.”
The canvas has the noticeable touch of her hand, where the thickly layered paint has been moved around in a sensuous manner by her palms or fingers. This technique gives the images a three dimensional, nearly culinary quality, the paint with an appearance like icing on a cake… almost good enough to eat. This invitation to an intense sensory interaction is carried through all the pieces, making the artwork massively tactile and dynamic.
EXHIBITIONS
2023
25th Anniversary Exhibition, group show, Knysna Fine Art, Knysna, South Africa
The Big Picture, group show, Knysna Fine Art, Knysna, South Africa
What I Feel When I Think About the Cosmos, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa
2022
Things I’d like to remember, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
Seduction, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
2021
Spring show, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa
Tele-Pollination, solo, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa
2020
Delicious Deliverance, solo, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
IMAGO, group show, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa
A Subtle Skill, group show, Knysna Fine Arts, Knysna, South Africa
On Being, group show, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa
STILL, online group exhibition, Everard Read, South Africa & UK
2019
Re-Arrangements, solo, part of Cubicle Series, Everard Read, Cape Town
2018
Summer, group exhibition, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
See.Me finalist for the Time Square Exhibition, New York, USA
2016
Solo exhibition at Art.Space, Cape Town, South Africa
2008
Solo exhibition VEO Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2001
Wembley Rd Studio, group exhibition, Cape Town, South Africa
