She is the subject of a multi-award winning short documentary, The Monolith, by New York filmmaker, Angelo Guglielmo. She has been featured in the New York Times, the Village Voice, international print media and on NY1 News. AZ and the Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museum in Scotland. Her artwork has been exhibited across the United States and Great Britain in galleries including Zürcher Gallery, Susan Teller Gallery and the Flatiron Prow Artspace in NYC, Geoffrey Young Gallery in Great Barrington MA and in museums including the Pearl Fincher Museum of Art in Houston, TX, the i.d.e.a. Gwyneth Leech is an award-winning American artist who lives and works in New York City.
Leech’s parallel “skylines” emphasize the fragility of these shelters, shifting her vision of the city from epic to imposing. Leech’s interest in temporary structures shifted during the early days of the pandemic, moving from tall, aerial structures to encampments of displaced peoples forming in the shadows of halted projects. Their visibility is only temporary - they will be concealed or disappear as suddenly as they have arrived. Despite their immensity, the internal supports and auxiliary architectures carry a sense of ephemerality. Scaffolding and netting cast a labyrinthine pattern over the emerging sleek and imposing edifices. Complex grids of rising steel columns and beams make up the skeletons of fledgling skyscrapers. Leech does not only give primacy to the skyscrapers, broadening her scope to celebrate the inner structures as well as the cranes, scaffolding, and temporary machinery that raise them. Gwyneth Leech offers up a contemporary iteration of Monet’s cathedrals and haystacks, pointing to a modernity in which there is a fleeting sense of permanence. When viewed through Leech’s diligent attention, both chronologies are shown to ebb and wane, speeding up and slowing down at irregular intervals. When viewed as a complete series, Leech’s paintings delineate two individual timelines – that of the building’s progress, and that of Manhattan’s progress. She often paints from the same vantage point multiple times, or conversely, the same subject from multiple street corners, tracking not only the pace of the urban development, but the more subtle, atmospheric indicators of the passage of time, as well.
Initially struck by a skyscraper emerging outside her studio window, Leech became captivated by the choreography of construction and sense of temporality contained within the project. Gwyneth Leech tracks the progress of Manhattan construction with the sensitivity of an Impressionist painter. Liminal New York will be on view from June 15th through June 26th an opening reception will take place on Thursday, June 16th from 6-8pm. Liminal New York observes these gestations from foundation to finish, capturing the transient adolescence of Manhattan’s future giants. Equal parts documentarian and poet, Leech’s paintings center on internal frameworks, scaffolding and other temporarily visible structures architectures that only exist as other architectures takes shape. Liminal New York features a selection of paintings from Gwyneth Leech, chronicling the evolution of New York City’s skyline. Garvey|Simon is pleased to present Gwyneth Leech: Liminal New York opening Jat Foley Gallery, 59 Orchard Street on the Lower East Side. June 15 - 26, Foley Gallery, 59 Orchard Street, New York, NY 10002
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