+About the Artist
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James Leonard is a Brooklyn-based artist. His work ranges from figure drawings and handheld objects to videos, installations, and socially engaged performance pieces.
Leonard’s art often examines complex intersections: where agency butts up against impotence, where alarm gives birth to growth, and where optimism coexists with grieving. He hopes that his works can serve as a form of wayfinding, helping others find beauty and joy while navigating the challenges of our twenty-first century existence.
Exhibitions and appearances include Queens Museum, the Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Wasserman Projects in Detroit, the Delaware Art Museum, and MASS MoCA. His work has been supported by the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, the Jersey City Parks Coalition, and the Joseph Robert Foundation. Leonard received his bachelor’s degree from Syracuse University and has an MFA from the University of Michigan. He has presented as visiting artist at institutions including Cornell, Harvard, and American University.
Last Rocket Drawings
2011 to 2017
Various mixed media
The Last Rocket series represents a multi-year pursuit of the image of a winged rocket. These drawings invoke intersections of global politics and ecology: nuclear annihilation, unintended catastrophic climate change, and elitist dreams of planetary escape. The Last Rocket series offers no singular outcome. Instead, these visual depictions and assembled “artifacts of the future” open imaginations to narratives simultaneously playful and horrific.
