Leslie Vigeant: Plastic Growth

June 9 - July 16

Opening Reception - June 11, 5 - 8pm

/ STATEMENT \
The word botany can be traced back to a Greek word βόσκειν - to feed, or to graze. As women, we are taught to feed others, not ourselves. Grazing is seen as a bad habit, and growth is accepted as a spiritual term, but not a physical one.   . 

Why do we force our bodies to fit into impossible molds, and how do we deal with the reality that we cannot? Plastic surgery, photo editing, fad diets, starvation - aside from dramatic actions there are no natural miracle ways for women to achieve these plasto-humanistic ideals. Long hair, long legs and the ever fluctuating bandwidth of skinny with curves to stick thin. Options are limited in how we define beauty on this superficial level. And superficiality, at this level, is what contemporary culture values. Disappointment is a natural part of life, and yet when it comes to the body, the seed was planted at infancy. Plastic Growth employs the visual language of growth in botany to critique the distemper of the perceived female disposition.

Leslie Vigeant has exhibited across the North America including at Cambridge College, Woodbury Art Museum, University of Missouri, Oklahoma State University, and the Winnipeg Underground Film Festival. She has received grants from RACC, Oregon Arts Commission, and UMass Arts Council. Residencies with GLEAN, Artspace Raleigh, and the Penland School of Crafts. Vigeant received her MFA in Applied Craft + Design (MFA AC+D) from OCAC and PNCA, and a BFA in Painting from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Leslie is currently the Graduate Studies Program Manager at the MFA AC+D Program and will be coming on as MFA and BFA adjunct faculty in Fall 2016.