Youth – a selection of works

Leah Marshall

Working originally in bronze sculpture, I have always studied,

sculptured, painted and been totally fascinated by the human fig-

ure. My endeavour was to capture not only form and character, but

to use imagination to link these through the creative process to

more universal themes.

At a point in my practice I discerned a need to divorce form from

colour, to enable me to work on refinement and fluidity in form.

Around this same period I responded to an urgent and growing

need to document and celebrate my son’s ever changing childhood.

The concept was born to link this need to a wider theme of human

youth, honouring both the innocent glowing litheness of the young

body, and its rich nobility of imagination. As the series developed,

and 12 years passed, a rich extra dimension emerged: that of

recording the impermanence of youth; its mutability; its evanescent

– and therefore priceless – rarity.

As with the boast ot Shakespeare that through the lines of his poem

his love’s eternal summer shall not fade, but rather:

“So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee”

so too this series attempts to preserve moments of time, and the

associated feelings and fancies of that time; elevated upon a

pedestal, out or the flow of time.

Rather than painting in highly worked layers of oil colour, as with

other threads of my work, in this series I restricted my palette to

two transparent earth tones. The distraction and concerns of colour

were removed, leaving me free to concentrate on tnbe pure image.

To achieve the desired effect, these two hues are laid down togeth-

er, one area (eg. the torso), needing to be completed in one ses-

sion. Once an area has dried it is never reworked.

Although working in a disciplined and structured fashion from full

sized charcoal sketches, this technique forced me to work at speed

in a vehicle pared down to the basic elements needed to convey the

spirit of the moment, the idea, and the individual.