Leonard Sexton: New Works entitled Broken Halos

Leonard Sexton has developed a new series of paintings about women with children entitled Broken Halos.

The physicality of his mark-making strives to tell us about motherhood, with a reference to all mothers instead of one mother. As he works, the forms dissolve under his labour and a great hope emerges. The paintings operate around a disintegration of forms and away from high representation or a conceptual barrenness.

His art reflects the actual struggle of his depicted subjects, each mother and child is weighed down within his paint’s aggravated application. Sexton leaves his graphic marks intact as a measure of his subjects’ traumas and complexity.

The stresses of existence – ageing, caring for the young, resting, carrying the child – go in and out of focus in this new series. He does not narrate a sentimental view of nurturing and strength, instead he gives us a heightened sense of lost moments and open incidences.

David Newton