Lea Lenhart

Mosaicists love glass in different shapes: And most the glass that has the form of a pizza, from which the smalti get cut with a hammer.

Round, but many times smaller is the Murano material Lea Lenhart works with tiny glass beads that are used primarily in the fashion industry, and that some of you might know from their childhood.

From painting to weaving

Lea comes from St. Gallen in Switzerland. After visiting a private art school, she went to the Düsseldorf Art Academy on the advice of her former teacher. At that time, she painted with oil and acrylic.

In a phase of frustration she came to the idea to translate her images into bead pictures. Her favorite technique is weaving the beads on a frame. Like weavers do since thousands of years, she weaves the pearls with needle and nylon thread on a framework of warp yarns.

Lea gets her inspiration primarily from nature. Lush plant worlds entwine oversized frames, beetles in bold colors show their wings as if they were prepared for a biological study. Abstract works play with round shapes and gradients.

Play with layers

The artist, who has set up her studio in a former school in the north of Düsseldorf loves to experiment with different techniques. In some works, Lea adds a painted background to the floating bead level which takes up the subject of the foreground. Depending on the angle from which you look at these images the different dimensions create a new effect.

After a period of embroidery on canvas Lea is currently working on objects. When the sun falls on these works they almost seem to be alive. Some remind shimmering underwater creatures, and the interplay between matte and glossy areas is incredibly close to nature.

With her pearl pictures Lea used to be exotic at the Art Academy. And still today her works are unique in the art world. Meanwhile, she has exhibited in many galleries in Germany and Switzerland.

Exhibition infos Lea Lenhart

If you want to see Lea’s works with your own eyes: During the open studio days Düsseldorf Kunstpunkte in mid-September the doors of her studio open for visitors. And the Neue Galerie Dachau will expose some of her works in the group exhibition “Organische Artefakte” from 13.9. to 3.11.2013.

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