Caroline Leaf is an experimental art animator by training and profession working in various plastic mediums, sand, wet paint-on-glass, etched film emulsion. Her animated story telling films are renowned for their emotional content and graphic style, closely tied to the innovative direct animation techniques she developed.
In 1984, during the Los Angeles summer Olympics, the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Oscar folks) organized an event with 50 critics and filmmaker judges from all over the world. All animated films ever made were judged in this international ‘Olympic’ competition, and Caroline Leaf’s film ‘The Street’ came in second, winning comfortably over Disney and all other commercial productions. In 2010 The Street was still in the top 10 best films ever made. Today she is an Oscar voting member, teaches at the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield, and enjoys giving sand and paint-on-glass workshops anywhere whenever asked.
It has taken many years to evolve her art of paintings that don’t move, her fine arts studio work in oils and watercolours. Outdoors with an iPad sheI explores nature and tests her ability to see what she is looking at.
She writes: I chase accidents which have energy. Perception hangs on multiple and delicate interrelationships within the image. A thread running through all of my work is a sense of spontaneity and the importance of working hands on with materials. The iPad, like oil painting and watercolour, is infinitely malleable and the stylus acts like an extension of my fingers.
Beginning a drawing, I look at a blank screen or a white piece of paper and start to excavate. The white surface contains infinite depth. The marks I make on it gradually begin to define a space. When it is finished, all of the parts make sense spatially. The composition satisfies me. It invites you to enter, to fly in and around.
To see more of her artwork and link to her animated films: www.carolineleaf.com
