My subject matter is found through guided imagery using knowledge and intuition of the world as I feel it. My work represents elements of the natural world and spiritual world. I consider my works drawings because I use my hand, fingers, sand paper and other tools in addition to brushes to push different mediums on paper. I am inspired by the work of these modernists: Clyfford Still for vertical and horizontal movement, Hans Hoffman for displacement of form, Lee Krasner for gesture, George Rouault for strong line, and Agnes Martin, for silence. I feel gratitude when I achieve balance of the familiar and unfamiliar, allowing me complete freedom from the material world.
Leslye is an artist, arts advocate and community activist. She serves on the Cleveland Institute of Art Alumni Board, the HeightsArts Gallery Committee and the Artist Archives of the Western Reserve Peer Review Committee. She is responsible for retrieving the controversial Trump sculpture which was auctioned off to support public art in Cleveland Heights. In 2015 she initiated a Public Art Mural Project in partnership with the City of Shaker Heights, Shaker Schools and the Fire Department. In 2016, to support economic development in the Van Aken District, Leslye co- founded the Shaker Community Gallery, a not-for-profit fine art Gallery in Shaker Heights. In 2017 she was asked to serve on the Shaker Heights City Government Public Art Committee, currently working on Van Aken District public art and Moreland neighborhood visioning. In 2018 she co-chaired the first Cleveland Institute of Alumni Show since the 1990’s and was an exhibiting artist in the CAN Triennial. Leslye is a part of an Artist Salon, has exhibited her work in juried shows and her work is in corporate and private collections in Cleveland.
She is represented by Bonfoey Gallery, Cleveland Ohio
& by TEW Gallery in Atlanta, Georgia.