Leslie Muir

Biography

Leslie Muir - Artists - Pryor Fine Art

Leslie Muir’s art spans from large-scale abstract expressionist works to smaller impressionistic pieces, showcasing a dynamic range of styles and techniques. She explores a variety of mediums and unconventional tools—mammoth paintbrushes, honey dippers, and palette knives—infusing each piece with energy and spontaneity. Grounded in technical expertise from studies with renowned painters such as Mark Chatov, Kim English, and Milt Kobayashi, Muir draws inspiration from countless artists but finds her late mother, also an artist, to be her most profound muse.

When creating abstract works, Muir embraces an intuitive process, working loosely with fluid media that often leads to unpredictable results. She welcomes these accidental effects, letting them guide the development of each piece. This experimental approach often involves repeatedly painting over sections, creating layers of color, texture, and impasto brushwork that enrich the final composition with depth and history.

Her studio is a lively, paint-splattered space reminiscent of a Jackson Pollock canvas, with bursts of color coating the floors, walls, and even the ceiling. Music plays a central role in her creative process, with an eclectic soundtrack ranging from classical and blues to disco—and plenty of Guns N’ Roses. Amidst the vibrant chaos, her dogs Olive and Izzy roam freely, often leaving the studio just as colorfully adorned as her canvases.

CV

My art ranges from large-scale abstract expressionist works to smaller impressionistic pieces. I utilize a variety of mediums and experiment with a hodgepodge of tools, from mammoth paintbrushes to afro picks to honeydrippers. Though I'm inspired by many painters, both bygone and contemporary, my late artist mother is my ever-present muse.

With abstracts, I prefer to play fast and loose with my work, especially at the outset, relying on chance more than forethought. When magic happens, it's usually a surprise, seldom intentional. Because the media I use is capricious, more often than not my paintings don't work the first few times and I have to wipe them out, resulting in several scrapped attempts underneath. Fortunately, these buried compositions tend to add under-effects of color and texture that enhance what ultimately evolves into the final piece.

My studio is akin to a Jackson Pollock crime scene, with floor, walls (even the ceiling!) splattered with multicolored paint spills, splashes and dribbles. Music and rhythm figure into my work, so a constant stream is always playing, ranging from classical to blues to disco—with a lot of Guns N’ Roses in between. My two dogs, Olive and Izzy, enter at their leisure, and often plod out more “colorful” than they arrived.

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