Leslie's public projects respond to site, history and the body. Figures are female or hermaphroditic, of imaginary descent, often melded with animal, architecture and plant forms. I create sculptures about transformation that draw on Jung’s collective unconscious. Placing the sculptures in public spaces lifts them into our collective consciousness. An ongoing project is a semi-public sculpture garden next to the artist's studio in Winooski, Vermont. A full sensory experience with sculpture is possible outdoors – rather than inside a museum or gallery.
Hands, a long-time focus of her art, stand in for the self in recent bronze and ceramic sculpture. Meanings change as the hands gesture release, acceptance and other associated states of being. The artist's own hands model sculptures out of clay, wax, or plaster. Unless clay is fired, Leslie make molds and cast with materials as various as concrete, resin, paper pulp, bronze, and rubber. She also draws, paints, and collages on paper and fabric.
Leslie Fry's sculptures, drawings, and prints have been exhibited internationally in museums and galleries such as Kunsthaus in Hamburg, Zwitscher Machine Gallery in Berlin, Hangaram Art Museum in Seoul, Windspiel Galerie in Vienna, Couvent des Cordeliers in Paris, deCordova Sculpture Park near Boston, Centre des Arts Visuels in Montreal, and Artists Space, Garvey Simon, Ki Smith Gallery, and Wave Hill in New York.
Public sculptures have been commissioned in New York, South Korea, Montreal, Florida, Wisconsin, and Vermont. Public collections include Tufts University, Songchu International Sculpture Park, Freehand New York, Kohler Arts Center, Tampa Museum of Art, Fleming Museum of Art, Musée d’art de Joliette, and St. Petersburg, Florida’s Museum of Fine Arts.
Among other awards, Fry received the Vermont 2023 Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts. Her B.A. is from the University of Vermont, her M.F.A. is from Bard College, and she attended the Central School of Art in London. Born in Montreal, she lives in Winooski, Vermont.
Over 47 years, Leslie Fry's art has ranged from intimate drawings to public sculptures to street performances. Starting with such basic human needs as food, shelter, clothing, and touch, she connects the natural and the constructed worlds. Inspirations span the body/spirit unity in Gothic cathedrals, puppetry, Elizabethan poetry, and Jungian approaches to the wholeness of self.