Leslie Thompson, the Superstar Artist Drawer

About

Leslie Thompson has a highly developed style, drawing both from memory and through live observational drawings. He depicts scenes from television and film from 1970 -1990. His drawings are punctuated with fascinating anecdotes from film, music and TV and he also has a vast collection of superheroes which he binds and protects as he incorporates them into selected artworks.

Thompson has been a regular artist at Venture Arts studios for over twenty years and through this has been able to extend his innate illustrative gifts into stitch, animation and printmaking. He was recently selected to show his work at the International Summit for Learning Disabled Artists in Glasgow in March/April 2015. He has shown his work widely in Manchester both on an individual and group level.

Leslie Thompson has been commissioned to draw timelines of events with Full Circle Artsand Dadafest, and his work has been exhibited nationally at Project Ability, Glasgow, The Lowry and the People’s History Museum, Manchester.

‘Leslie Thompson, The Superstar Artist Drawer’ will be Leslie’s first solo show in Scotland, and we are delighted to not only host the exhibition, but to host Leslie as well when he comes to visit us to see the show and work in the studios. We are celebrating his exhibition and visit with an afternoon reception on Friday 18 August, 1pm-3pm, which is open to the public. As part of the reception we are having a ‘Cartoon Afternoon’ in the gallery. Leslie will be working with Project Ability’s Friday Aspire group in the morning before all of the artists will come down to the gallery and watch some retro cartoons, enjoy the art and conversation.

Leslie has visited Project Ability before, during the Summit in 2015, so many of our tutors and artists remember him. We are all looking forward to his return this autumn for what will be an exciting exhibition of drawings, textiles and small sculptural pieces.