Leslie Norgate

Leslie Norgate is a painter working in Toronto, where she was born and raised. She lives in a vibrant old neighbourhood where there are dogs on every corner and where common sights seen in uncommon light abound.

 

It is these common/uncommon moments that Leslie is compelled to capture in her paintings. They emerge gradually - undergoing many scrapings and smearings of paint, adding and subtracting, shifting of lines, reworking, slapping with an old broken t-square, laying on and taking off, messing up a line that’s too straight, then not straight enough, turning the volume up and down, lightening and darkening, then again in reverse, shifting focus from one area to another, trying to achieve balance whilst retaining some tension - until finally, they resemble the original moment which is so vividly remembered, and speak their narrative mystery that begged to be painted in the first place.