Seeking to summon an allegorical way of seeing, Sheather is driven by the allure of the wonder that she sees in nature; her desire to emphasis its uneasy or ambiguous position while also instilling her own regenerative aspirations for the Earth.
Lea-Anne Sheather’s work reflects on the interconnectedness of life forms and the human interference with nature. She endeavors to tease out and look behind daily reality to create her own ideology that makes sense of her personal relationship with the Earth, including the anxieties and fears she has for both its future and for the afterlife.
Seeking to summon an allegorical way of seeing, Sheather is driven by the allure of the wonder that she sees in nature; her desire to emphasis its uneasy or ambiguous position while also instilling her own regenerative aspirations for the Earth. She represents this through fluid metamorphosis, with forms that deviate from natural figuration to mystical abstraction. Using a range of pattern-based drawing and painting techniques, Sheather presents hybrid worlds that embrace the shadowy, sexual and organic.
Sheather’s intense compositions reveal densely-packed form, colour, and texture: mimicking organic forms (feathers, veins, scales) or else offering a caricature of nature which seems at once familiar and alien. Her energetic works present slippage between animal, vegetable and consumable, with ambiguity of scale that creates conflation when micro and macro take on the same characteristics.
Sheather explains: “Kinship and interconnectedness with other lives and life forms and the cyclic pulse of regeneration and decay are what I focus on in my work. I want to embrace the world in its flux and immutability and to engage myself in its power, resilience, connectivity and ambiguity … I am very interested in the ways that dualistic thought is an intrinsic part of our existence. Thought that creates hierarchy and separation between life forms which can lead them to be outside ethical consideration.”
Lea-Anne Sheather acquired her Master’s degree with First Class Honours from Whitecliffe School of Fine Arts. Her work is held in significant collections including The James Wallace Arts Trust and Chris Parkin Collection.
BIOGRAPHY
Education: Master of Fine Arts with 1st Class Honours (2014)
Public Exhibitions: The Supremes – 3 winners of the Miles Art Award, Tauranga Public Gallery (2015); Scapes, Whakatane Museum Gallery, Whakatane (2015); Glaister Ennor Graduate Art Awards, Sanderson Contemporary, Auckland (2014);Ruins, Artspost, Hamilton (2014)
Awards/Distinctions: Miles Art Award - Supreme Winner (2014); Glaister Ennor Graduate Art Award – Finalist (2014); Parkin Drawing Prize – Finalist (2013); Waiheke Island Art Awards – Finalist (2013; 2008); Molly Morpeth Local Artist Award – Finalist and Winner; Taupo Art Awards – Finalist (2002);
Collections: The James Wallace Arts Trust, Auckland; The Chris Parkin Collection, Wellington
Artwork featured in: Batt, Tanya, Imagined Worlds Playcentre Publications, 2001
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