The Artwork of Leslie Lew

An Interview with Park West Gallery Director Morris Shapiro

Park West Gallery Director Morris Shapiro recently had the opportunity to sit down with Leslie and discuss her work and career.

Morris Shapiro: One of the things that strikes me about your work, which I find so fascinating and appealing, is that the notion of Pop Art and American Art is often about taking imagery from our culture and elevating it to art from a context in which it's not art. You have this very positive idea of finding things in our culture, in our past particularly, that elevate people and bring them wonderful feelings about their past, about growing up in America.

Leslie Lew: I feel that we all have little portions of our lives...maybe when you were a child...that fresh and that wonderful time when you saw life in a totally different way and everything was new and exciting. That's what I'm dealing with. I'm almost channeling memories. I'm channeling moments that we've all had. People see my work and they say "I remember when I did that..." or "This brings back my memory of..." And it's not one experience--there are all these little moments of our lives. I feel I am a recorder of history; I feel I am almost channeling that and grabbing it for posterity. Life has changed so much; life now is so chaotic. We've got Home Depot, we've got Bed, Bath and Beyond. We don't have those little stores any longer; they have gone out of existence. So I grab these little moments that we've had, because we need to keep them. It's our American heritage; it's part of our souls.

Shapiro: Tell us about the three artists who were you primary influences--Peter Max, Andy Warhol and Norman Rockwell.

Lew: Peter Max, with the vibrant and explosive color. People who like Peter Max tend to gravitate toward my work. He is draws from popular American culture, so I can see that. And of course Warhol is the ultimate Pop artist. Like my father, he was in advertising before he was a painter.

Shapiro: And you knew him?

Lew: Yeah I did. He was really a shy guy, and he lived behind his camera. He had a little Brownie camera. He would always carry it around because he could take pictures and be among the crowd and have fun, but he didn't really have to be part of. He went to my first exhibit, and I did a painting of my opening that was displayed in the window of my gallery. In the corner I painted Andy with his camera peaking out.

Shapiro: So from Peter Max you get the idea of reaching the public with cultural iconography. And Warhol has influenced your Pop style, where you appropriate things from culture. What about Norman Rockwell?

Lew: From Norman Rockwell I learned to appeal to the soul. It's about our whole memories, like macaroni and cheese and meatloaf--comfort food--appealing to those memories that we have deep in our soul. I'm so happy because people get it; they may not know about art, but they love it. And people who are collecting Picasso's and Rembrandts also get it. I just love that.

Norman Rockwell did a lot of scenes of Americana. You know...the barber shop scene with the little boy getting his hair cut, the army scenes, soldiers, things that were happening in his life. For me, I think I've done something similar for my generation--the Baby Boomers. I've noticed, though, that even people that are in their 20s and 30s still seem to be able to relate. And I grab those kinds of ideas. I've done a barber shop, and I didn't put anybody in it, but there are a lot of products. It's almost about the barber and his shop. He's got his little coat in there and he's got his little icons on the shelf and a hairdryer, and the mirror reflects his jacket. Or I do the Animal Crackers because we've all had animal crackers.

Shapiro: Tell me about Animal Crackers.

Lew: Animal crackers. I think that's got to be better than Campbell's soup. It's the epitome of every childhood. Everybody growing up in America has had animal crackers. My son has had them, you have had them, I've had them. I would say most people in the world have. I don't even know if I thought about that when I first started doing animal cracker paintings. I just loved the animals and I loved the idea of building them up and making them like little live creatures.

Shapiro: And this particular subject is, I think, one of your most popular. I understand you made a painting which is in the Mayo Clinic.

Lew: Yes, the very first animal cracker painting that I ever painted was purchased by the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. What made me feel really great was that they hung it in the lobby of the children's ward. When the kids walk in, and these are scared, sick kids, the first thing they get to see is Animal Crackers. And literally, every one of those kids lights up. They are allowed to touch it, and I think in some ways it might be a little bit of a healing thing, too.

Shapiro: Let's talk about your technique of sculpted oil. What can you tell me about this extraordinary technique? I call it alluring...I think that's a good word for it.

Lew: It's not something that I contrived. It's so funny how a lot of times people think "I've got to think of something new and exciting." That's not what I set out to do. It started when I went to a supermarket, sketched out the scene, then went home and painted this really chaotic, crazy supermarket. What's really interesting about this painting is it's one of my first paintings, and it has animal crackers. I think the technique stemmed from this first painting, where I built up all the little objects. I decided to make them more important and objectify them by building them up. So, the areas behind weren't quite as thick, and the objects were emphasized. All these little products were three dimensional; sort of built up, like little toys. That's how it started. And I just kept getting thicker and thicker after that.

Shapiro: Tell me about some of the technical challenges in making a painting like this. It looks like it's really hard to do.

Lew: Originally I would only use oil paint. I would ship them and they would always bleed, or they would ooze out when people would poke them, and I would have to repair it. So about 15 years ago, I decided that what I should do is figure out how to get them to dry quicker, so I'd be able to move them and ship them to museums. Now I use acrylic titanium white first. It's paint...not anything else...just paint. What I do is build up surface areas. First I do a sketch...I draw it all out, so it's completely black and white. Then I mound the paint on with my brushes, but it's all still white. I let it dry for one day. Then I squeeze out my oil and I go into it really thick and I build it up even more so it has a foundation underneath.

Shapiro: The oil would take 10 years to dry wouldn't it?

Lew: Actually oil takes 200 years to dry, Rembrandts are still wet. It's dry to the touch, but oil is living...it's pigment. It's not like acrylic, which is plastic. Oil keeps feeding the surface, which is why I say it's still wet.

Shapiro: And then you have all of the little details.

Lew: Yeah I use different brushes for those. With the bigger brushes I mound and just build up the paint, and I work wet on wet. I don't stop; I don't let things dry. It's not contrived...I just work until I'm done.

Shapiro: Moving on from the sculpted oils, you also do what you call a "monotype." It's also called a mixed-media painting, an embellished painting, an embellished graphic work, but you go way beyond the embellished graphic concept. It begins as a graphic work, a giclee or something of that nature, and then you go to town.

Lew: Yes, I just started doing these. When I painted the first monotypes, they weren't as thick because I hadn't learned yet what I was doing with them. Now I'm realizing that the more paint that I can put on a monotype, the better it is. It looks just like my painting; it's so cool. And it's so great because it is another thing I can offer people if they can't afford a large oil.

Shapiro: And each one is an original piece, an original work.

Lew: Yeah, each one will be different.

Shapiro: So from there we go to the next category, which would be the cast paper paintings. Tell me about those.

Lew: I actually did cast paper before I did the monotypes. This was invented by me back in 1990. At that time, I didn't have any prints; I just had my sculpted oils, and I wanted to be able to offer a work that would be on paper that might be more reasonable for people not able to afford an oil.

So I went into a paper making factory at the time. I had them do a casting, make a mold, of an original oil painting that I had, a really thick one with lots of texture. They made a latex mold of the painting, then pressed paper pulp...it looks like oatmeal...into the crevasses of the mold, then they dry it and pull it out. The result is this white on white imprint of the image. It looks just like the painting, but it will be white. So then what I have to do is hand-paint the entire scene. So it's three dimensional, like a painting, but on paper. I have to do each one, it is labor intensive.

Shapiro: And again, these are done in limited numbers? I would image you don't make and entire edition, say of 300, at one time.

Lew: No I don't.

Shapiro: From there we go to the match boxes. Tell me about the match boxes.

Lew: Oh the match boxes. You know what, it's so funny. Park West has inspired me in some way and gotten me to return to my roots of when I first was starting out as a young painter, an artist. East Village. I told you I was in the East Village with the program Semester in New York City, and I was invited by one of the major artists who were looking at our work to participate in an East Village show. And I had never shown. I had shown in the Art Institute museum, but I had not had a show in New York yet.

They invited me to participate, and they said all you have to do is paint some paintings on matches. It could be match boxes, it could be matches, whatever. Well I went around to restaurants, I didn't know where to find matches, and I would steal them, I would steal the match boxes. So I would cover them, I would jazz them up, and I would paint a scene on them.

Shapiro: You are talking about the box boxes, not the little flip matches.

Lew: Yeah not the little flip ones. So I painted all these really cool, different images, and they were displayed along with all these other artists. A big art dealer came in, saw my work, and immediately picked me up and I had my first sell out show.

Shapiro: Of the match boxes?

Lew: No, based on the match boxes. They loved my match boxes. So what I did was, the match boxes I haven't painted since 1980, but I resurrected it for Park West. I channeled back into feeling the way I felt, and I thought the match boxes would be a really cool idea.

Shapiro: So now you do them in series right?

Lew: Yes I do, and I do all different kinds. I have the comic superhero deal; I've got the playing cards. I have little fruit ones, cups you know. I've got breakfast cereals and animal crackers.

Shapiro: So these are actual painted match box covers.

Lew: Yes. I use micro marks brushes, which are these ceramic brushes. They are like one eyelash brush, and they are used in real detail. Probably Picasso used them for some of his plates because you need to get really fine lines or some detail. I work on them, one at a time individually, and mound paint on them so they are like little paintings, little micro paintings.

Shapiro: And then you lay them out on a black background.

Lew: On black rag paper.

Shapiro: And then you make a limited number of them. You number them and sign them.

Lew: That's right....99.

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