The Barn is now featuring local artist Leslie Banta, located in the Middle Gallery space through the month of February.

These paintings explore landscape as an archetypal image. The goal of this exploration is not to render a photorealistic replica of a Shenandoah Valley vista, but rather to experiment with an emotional response to the scenes that local residents are treated to everyday.

Collaged items interrupt the pattern of earth and sky to further invite the viewer to experience landscapes in a fresh way, to enjoy the surface of the painting, to delight in the playful interaction between fields of color and texture and finally to refocus on the hill or the sky.

In these pieces the skies are also intentionally large and wide. Here the artist seeks relaxation and "head space" from an often hectic daily life in the peaceful expanses of open air.

artist bio

Award-winning artist Leslie Banta exhibited for nine years in the Washington, DC metro area before moving to the Shenandoah Valley in 2005. She earned a BFA in Oil Painting from Birmingham-Southern College in her native Alabama. Leslie Banta's post-graduate work includes mentorship from Northern Virginia abstract painter Joyce McCarten, and at the Corcoran College of Art & Design in Washington, DC she studied with fellow Alabama native Bill Christenberry and collage guru Mindy Weisel. British artist Richard Kenton Webb helped her to see 'colour‘ in a new way, and greatly influenced her palette. She lives in Staunton, Virginia with her husband and their two sons.