Terrel Van Leeuwen: In the Mind’s Sight

Fascination with the human desire to put meanings into places or objects has always interested me.  I find those places and put them into my artwork. Using Conte Crayon, I can have a wide range of subject matter but still have a consistency of work.

The symbols I am drawn to come from history, power, and the natural world. It can be classical figures reinterpreted to have different meanings. The moon is sitting in a black pool of space. Modern images of a rocket firing or a tornado treated as if they were an old photograph, something from our history, past, or imagination. Tools laid out or sitting in a spotlight are symbols of my father and my mother’s roses. A rhino in a strange land is wondering about the future. Life springing from the thought of the Buddha.

All of these things drive me to do the art that I do and the viewer to ponder.