Melissa Stern

Handle, outsider art figurative assemblage

2017

A 2023 recipient of the Vermont Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, Leslie Fry is represented in this show with fantastical sculptures of female hands, titled the “Cuffed” series. Tensely poised and mannered gestures, inspired by Parmigianino and Caravaggio, cascade into blooms and barnacles, creating a mesmerizing visual dissonance. This elision of romance and rigidity both draws attention to the limitations of the female form and liberates it from the constraints of reality. Leslie Fry’s works have been exhibited internationally at such venues as Kunsthaus in Hamburg, Zwitscher Machine Gallery in Berlin, Hangaram Art Museum in Seoul, Windspiel Galerie in Vienna, Couvent des Cordeliers in Paris, Artists Space and Wave Hill in New York, deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum near Boston, and Centre des Arts Visuels in Montreal. Her public sculptures have been commissioned in New York, South Korea, Montreal, Florida, Wisconsin, and Vermont; public collections include Tufts University, Songchu International Sculpture Park, Freehand New York, Kohler Arts Center, Tampa Museum of Art, Fleming Museum of Art, Musée d’art de Joliette, and St. Petersburg, Florida’s Museum of Fine Arts. Fry’s M.F.A. is from Bard College, and her B.A. is from the University of Vermont, with a Foundation year at the Central School of Art in London. She currently lives and works in Winooski, VT. Artist Statement: #1 My hands reach, touch, and shape. Hands let go and receive; they try to hold things and to hold things together. Some of my images of hands are derived from Mannerist paintings by Parmigianino and Caravaggio, and are ink-washed onto vintage tablecloths...

Artist Statement: #1 My hands reach, touch, and shape. Hands let go and receive; they try to hold things and to hold things together. Some of my images of hands are derived from M...