My work has always concerned the reciprocal relationship between physical surroundings and the internal self, how the character of physical spaces shape our own character. I have for awhile been exploring the portrayal of place, place as defined both by our senses and by our reaction to experience. This has taken the shape of recognizable, if not always ordinary forms, balanced within some sort of terrain. The field of vision is limited in these pieces and the space claustrophobic. Object plays against object, each interacting with the other to form a visual metaphor of varying thematic interests such as conflict, desire, or control.

Over the past few years the prints have covered a range of territory, moving from the singular dominant form within a compressed space to more fragmented images of indirect focus. This shift began in part with a move several ago to the city of Chicago, and my life in an urban landscape both beautiful and frayed. Together there exist the abandoned and the precious, open lots, fenced enclosures, urban gardens and trees rooted deep beneath the concrete, our reliquaries to nature, all continually eroded by a wind of use and debris. I have recently returned to the south. As it falls under the pressure of development I am increasingly interested in the measure of our impact upon the landscape and its reflection within us. More and more it seems as if we live in a landscape of commodity, a wilderness of detritus. My prints reflect this environment of accumulation. The imagery has become more layered and the hierarchy of forms less defined. The efflorescence of material cataloging our own experience of the forgotten, the half-remembered, the ill-disposed or unresolved, the hoped-for. The previous economies of form are replaced by excess and entanglement. What changes within us as the memory of the pastoral environment fades from collective conscience and we replace it with what we grow in the garden of our commerce?

Technology has been a not-innocuous contributor to this surfeit. How will we make sense of the accumulating residue of human activity? The print done for the HomeoStatic portfolio is the title piece and first in a current series called The Nightingale. It concerns in part the seductive nature of new technology. The title refers to Hans Christian Anderson's fable "The Emperor's Nightingale".

Yvonne Leonard received a BFA from West Virginia University and a MFA from the University of Texas at Austin. Her work has been exhibited in numerous shows including: The Southern Print Invitational, University of Georgia; ARC National Print Show, Chicago; and SPIVA 46th Annual, SPIVA Center for the Arts, Joplin, MO. Leonard is currently director of the Printmaking Program at Savannah College of the Art and Design. She has also taught at Virginia Commonwealth University and the School at the Art Institute of Chicago. She has been involved in many workshop including the Penland School, North Carolina and The Flatbed Press, Austin, Texas.

Leonard has received numerous grants and awards including: purchase awards from the SPIVA Annual and the University of Michigan. The artist's work is in the collections of: TheWest Virginia State Collection, The Watson Group, Austin, Texas and Lawrence College, Potsdam, NY.