Leigh Werrell – Transforming the Everyday into the Extraordinary

Exploring Emotion, Ambiguity, And Connection Through Painting And Sculpture

Leigh Werrell discusses her artistic process, the emotional depth of her work, and how themes of ambiguity and connection shape her paintings and three-dimensional creations.

In this interview, Philadelphia-based artist Leigh Werrell offers an intimate look into her creative process and the themes that drive her work. Known for her evocative paintings and three-dimensional objects, Werrell explores deeply personal experiences through visual narratives that touch on mental discord, nostalgia, and the unease of the unknown. Her use of color, translucency, and ambiguity invites viewers to connect emotionally and interpret her work through their own lens. A graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and represented by Gross McCleaf Gallery, Werrell’s art has been featured in numerous exhibitions, including at PAFA, Woodmere Art Museum, and Cerulean Arts Gallery. In this conversation, she reflects on how the pandemic shaped her artistic themes, the influence of classical relief sculpture on her 3D work, and her hope that her art inspires viewers to find beauty and connection in the everyday.

How did your experience during the pandemic influence the themes and subjects in your recent work?

Because my work is informed by my everyday experiences, the sense of openness, community and gathering in my pre-pandemic work turned to a feeling of solitude and uneasiness after 2019. In my 2022 exhibition, my work was pervaded by a yearning for human connection – searching for it out of windows, peeking into neighbors’ homes and the storefronts and restaurants that used to be so easy to enter. Happily, I have started to incorporate a more social lifestyle into my more recent work.

Can you talk about how you use color, luminescence, and translucency to evoke emotion and invite viewer interpretation?

I use color in the same way that films and television shows use filters to establish specific moods. I usually do a wash of one color that I choose intuitively to fill the panel before drafting.  

The quality of tonal shifts impacts the mood of a painting. A highly contrasting detail in a painting may intonate strength or power, whereas a softer shift may show gentleness or tranquility. For example, I’m currently working on a tonally dark painting of myself nursing my child in the middle of the night, and the edges of each object and figure will be fuzzy and indeterminate. However, other work includes intense neon lights or the glare of a nighttime window, details that deliver a more frenetic and energizing experience.

Often, I think of translucency as a way to obscure a narrative, to allow the viewer to find familiarity by bringing their own interpretation to the scene. I find windows especially enticing, as they hold a separate world hostage behind silent glass panels or brightly lit signs. 

What role does ambiguity play in your work, and why do you think it is essential for creating an empathetic connection with viewers?

Ambiguity draws people in and allows them to see a story that includes their own experience. Often, I use shallow tonal shifts, blurry edges, sanding, and overglazing to allow viewers to interpret what they see in their own way. My process includes taking pictures of dark places with undefinable objects. These photographs serve as starting points as I expand on what I believe to exist, using tidbits from my known world, but also creating forms which have no reality beyond the painted world. This tension creates a mystery that is enticing and emotionally stimulating, and the imprecision of this process gives my work more emotion and character.

How do three-dimensional works and classical stone relief sculpture influence the way you structure and present your scenes?

My recent papier-mâché work was inspired by work I saw in Vermont at the Bread and Puppet Theater, including some by Peter Schumann, who had taken inspiration from classical bas-relief sculptures to make a more raw and primitive version of them. I am most interested in the way that the medium allows for some loss of control within the making process. In 2018 I started experimenting with incorporating 3D elements into my paintings by bringing objects and figures out of the surface. Color is still important to these works; however, they are often more monochrome, to allow the sculptural components to speak for themselves. The sculpture, “Tent,” explores pandemic isolation by illustrating that there is no way in or out of the structure, and no way to reach the party inside. 

In what ways do you hope your art encourages viewers to see themselves or others in new perspectives?

I believe the greatest joy one can get from a piece of art, a novel, or music is feeling seen, connecting emotionally, and finding similarities between one’s own experience and the story within the piece. I hope that by making work that speaks to my own life, my viewpoint, and what moves me, a viewer can feel a connection and a mutuality that inspires deeper contemplation of the themes and sentiments of the work. I think viewers, especially right now, need something to help them recognize the beauty held within conventionally unattractive or mundane scenes. 

How do you approach balancing familiar emotions with elements of the unexpected in your pieces?

Many of my scenes may appear as everyday trivialities at first, but I find the parts that interest me and emphasize them with tone and color, and enhance or restructure elements in order to accentuate them. For example, in 2018 I was captivated by a food truck across from the Eiffel Tower, from which was emanating a beautiful luminescence. It had a certain character that I brought out by emphasizing the eerie light and obscuring or leaving out the smaller details that took away from that brilliance.  

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