Devin Leonardi

Devin Leonardi’s drawings and paintings take cues from classical painting traditions to capture an idealized American landscape. Gleaning imagery from nineteenth century photographs, Leonardi’s subjects range from the country’s westward expansion to the early stages of industrialization and the American Civil War. Bringing these historical epochs into our current dialogue, Leonardi crafts a conversation around the authenticity of photography and its relationship to painting and the present. Reconstructing his distinctly American source imagery to romantic and atmospheric ends, Leonardi draws from a period that witnessed great transformation through the invention of photography and rise of modernity. Wary of equating these developments with progress, the artist’s work offers a contemplative space for considering how history is documented and preserved, transcending his source material to construct timeless allegories unbound by present-day conditions.