‘Trees show up in my work over and over again. I think I use them so much because they are such an essential symbol. Trees represent home, shelter, seasons, change and stability, life and endurance.’
–Zoe Leonard
Included in her landmark survey at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles in 2018, the sculpture and photography brought together for the exhibition explore especially resonant themes of confinement and liberation, solitude and togetherness.
Zoe Leonard Tree, 1997
Wood, steel, steel cable height: 627.9 cm / 247.2 in Installation view, 'Zoe Leonard: Survey,' The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Los Angeles, 2018. Photo: Brian Forrest. Courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
New York-based artist Zoe Leonard balances rigorous conceptualism with a distinctly personal vision in her work. By employing strategies of repetition, shifting perspectives, and a multitude of printing processes, Leonard’s practice probes the politics of representation and display. Leonard explores themes such as gender and sexuality, loss and mourning, migration, displacement, and the urban landscape. More than its focus on any particular subject, however, Leonard’s work encourages the viewer to reconsider the act of looking itself, drawing attention to observation as a complex, ongoing process.