bio.
Leslie King combines her experience in theater and mastery of clay, to create narrative ceramic characters inspired by both reality and myth.
With a BA in Theater from the University of Maryland, Leslie started out as a puppeteer in New York City's Central Park, performing and making puppets at the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre. Then, moving to Denmark she worked as a scenic artist at Det Kongelige Teatre (the Royal Theater) in Copenhagen, painting sets, creating specialty props and masks.
After completing her degree in Graphic Design from Denmark’s Design Skole (now The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts), she spent a decade working as a graphic artist and videographer for CSC in Denmark. During that time she worked internationally on projects in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Great Britain, France, and the US.
Leslie has been working with ceramic sculpture since 2016, earning her MFA in Ceramic Sculpture from Hood College in 2021. She is represented by TAG/The Artists Gallery in Frederick, MD.
artist statement.
"My sculptures are based in reality and informed by my imagination. They are about people I've known, and characters in stories, memories and myths.
My tools are imagination, experimentation, and persistence. It is with them that I try to find a physical manifestation of things that are important to me.
My process begins with building the clay into a rough form, experimenting with planes, lines, and texture. As I continue to work, a recognizable character starts to emerge. The smallest thing, a smile, gesture, a turn of the head, a slumping shoulder, might be all it takes for the narrative to become clear and the sculpture finished."
- Leslie King
