Jack Shainman Gallery is pleased to announce One Big Love, Leslie Waynes eighth solo exhibition at the gallery. Here Wayne presents small, 13×10 inch, oil and mixed media paintings on organically shaped panels, from an ongoing series by the same name. The series was inspired by an article in the New Yorker entitled The Eureka Hunt (July 28, 2008), describing a situation in which a fire fighters instinct saved his life. The article articulated an interesting condition of mental acuity, which is not unlike that of an artist and their studio practice in a moment of inspiration. Noting that artists often try to achieve a state of grace – of letting go or getting in the zone – by listening to music, listening to music became a driving principle behind the development of these paintings, and ultimately a condition of their creation.

Waynes process continues to address the dialectic between material memory and the nature of morphogenesis. One Big Love signals a return to the small format and the nature of intimacy.

Leslie Wayne has presented her work in numerous solo and group exhibitions including the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Peace Tower/Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (both 2006); Bildmuseet, Umea, Sweden; Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, FL (both 2003); The Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL (2001); Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA (2000); and The Continuous Painting Wall, Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL (1999). She was the recipient of a 2006 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Painting.

A forthcoming solo exhibition at the Halsey Institute for Contemporary Art, Charleston, SC, is slated to open in January 2011.

A full-color catalogue, One Big Love, featuring a conversation by Amy Smith-Stewart, is available.