Leslie Glenn Damhus

The paintings of Leslie Glenn Damhus are steeped in mythology, fairytales and the symbolism of religious iconography. She combines the historical and the contemporary, weaving modern-day cultural reference through Quattrocento imagery.

Her paintings are filled with contrasting ideas and the viewer is often confronted by the gaze of the strange and often mischievous animals. Damhus invites the audience to make a connection with the animal, possibly challenging views on beauty and ugliness, sacred and the profane, the serious with the playful, the significant with the trivial and pouring over each painting, her well-tuned sense of humour adds a mischievous twist to her love of Renaissance imagery.

Leslie Glenn Damhus graduated from the University of the West of England, Bristol with an Honours Degree in Fine Arts. She exhibits regularly throughout the South West and was elected an RWA Academician in 2018. In the same year she was the winner of The Evolver Award at The RWA Annual Open and the 2014 winner of the Bath Society of Artists Portrait award. She has lived in the US, Denmark and Australia and currently lives and works in Frome, Somerset.

In 2024 Leslie curated ‘Fauna’ at the RWA, an exhibition which explored the symbolism of animals in art, bringing together paintings and sculptures by RWA Academicians; Angela Lizon, Beth Carter and Dorcas Casey alongside her own work.