Leon McAleenan is an artist from Northern Ireland who now lives and works in North County Dublin. Leon’s current practice is predominantly painting, completed using oils and a variety of media and it incorporates many elements from his earlier creative practice.

As a graduate of printmaking, who spent a significant period working with fine craft textiles and three-dimensional forms, he is drawn to processes involving layering and the development of textures and form. In this way he responds to space and the natural environment, building a composition that is both organic and abstract.

Deconstructing elements of the natural world down to their most intrinsic form is a constant in his work. Leon views the landscape as a vessel; a holder of time (past - present - future) and experience; a record of life and death. For him, being in the landscape "is to be reminded that physical matter is simultaneously indestructible and entirely transmutable" (Robert MacFarlane).

The surface of Leon's paintings echo the hard immutable quality of the landscape whilst also hinting at it's inherent vulnerability. When looking at Leon's paintings, it is possible to see the layers that have built up over time like the strata in sedimentary rock, echoing the topology of the landscape and the topology of time itself. 

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