Sue Ellen Leys is a NJ born painter who began exploring the visual and performing arts growing up in Memphis, Tennessee and metropolitan New Jersey where she now resides. A BFA from Washington University in St. Louis led to a career in fashion design, styling, and costume design for theatre in Los Angeles, New York City, regionally, & the UK.
“My process creating narrative paintings begins with the seeing, experiencing, and documenting of events through my candid photography of scenes of people celebrating art, music, & style. By singing in bands and attending festivals myself, I am participating in this community. I am more interested in gesture than an exact likeness, and in clothing as an extension of the character.”
Sue Ellen has shown work in about 40 solo and group shows, some of which are listed on the left. During September-October 2024, her paintings will be in group shows at Montclair Art Museum, Studio Montclair’s Leach Gallery, the Heidi Gallery (Livingston), 1978 Arts Center (Maplewood), and Green Door Studio (Millburn).
Since 2003, the artist has been working in the encaustic medium. It is an ancient process-oriented method of painting with heated and fused pigmented beeswax. In 2017 her encaustic work was included in a “Bay Area Figurative” juried show and catalogue curated by John Seed in California: “Honoring the Legacy of David Park” at Santa Clara University.
Her oil paintings often depict individuals in architectural settings, such as shop and restaurant windows. One that was selected for the Visual Arts Center NJ “International Juried Show” (juried by Thelma Golden) is described by William Zimmer (The New York Times, April 7,1996) as "a low key celebration of the contemporary world, ...representational painting (being) the most alluring in this show."
