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metro art
By Megan Voeller |
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Artist Profile: Leslie Fry
John, 2007
Painted plaster, plant material 2 1/2' x 4' x 12'
Artist Leslie Fry’s plaster sculptures lure her audience into imaginary worlds while conveying subtle messages about our own very real sphere. At Boca Ciega Millennium Park in Seminole, her fanciful creatures—a sculpted lady with pinecones for hair or a snakelike man who wears a tiny house as a hat—convey a sense of environmental interdependency through fairytale imagery. Visitors who find the sculptures nestled amid the park’s flora take away an unexpected encounter with life and art.
With a knack for conveying ideas in visual form, it’s little surprise that Fry began her professional life as a book designer. Born in Montreal to literary parents, she studied at the University of Vermont and the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College before making her way to Sarasota in 1999 as a professor at the University of South Florida’s New College. Now she divides her time between St. Petersburg and Vermont and specializes in public art projects. Public commissions, Fry says, come with the reward of watching artwork become a cherished landmark.
Pining, 2007
Painted plaster, pine cones 7' x 2' x 2'
“When it works, public art is art and democracy together,” said Fry. “The great thing about Florida is that there are lots of public art opportunities compared to other states.”
Fry recently released a book commemorating the Boca Ciega Millennium Park project, titled Wild Life, through online publisher Lulu.com. In addition to essays by the artist, the park’s supervisor and curator Nick Capasso of the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, Mass., the volume documents her sculptures in 45 full-color pages with photographs by Burk Uzzle.
For more information about her work, visit lesliefry.com.
— Megan Voeller |
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(c) Copyright 2008 Tampa Bay Metro Magazine
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