Leslie Osterling
Bio
Visual artist and photographer currently based in London. She studied art at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (1991) and at the Escuela de Artes Visuales Corriente Alterna (1998), and attended photography workshops at the Centro de la Imagen (2006). She has also attended open courses in art, language and French civilisation at the Sorbonne in Paris.
She has exhibited her work individually and collectively in Lima, Madrid, Miami, Seoul and London. She recently exhibited at Photo London and the London Design Biennale. In 2023, her work was included in the iconic summer exhibition at the Royal Academy in London.
Osterling's gaze delves into the aesthetic value of art and its function in Peruvian society, articulated through an activist practice in which art is not seen as an end in itself, but as a channel for generating actions aimed at social development.
Since 2023, she has focused her attention on the project 'Hæirloom Ollantaytambo's (post) modern weavers', which was exhibited in the same year at the gallery of the Peruvian Embassy in London and selected for the next edition of the London Design Biennale. The project showcases the work of a group of weavers from the Sacred Valley of Cusco who use ancestral techniques to make wigs from their own hair, highlighting the value of Peruvian Andean hair as a sustainable raw material for creating pieces with significant social impact.
Statement
Leslie’s work reflects on the photographic image, inviting the viewer to recognise that the image will likely outlive us, and that we are the transient element in relation to it. It is the element of the future — the fragment of history that endures. Often, the image possesses more memory and more future than the viewer contemplating it.
Leslie's intention is to capture what the human eye cannot see. To leave a mark. She creates images that stimulate the senses, move us and generate intangible sensations whose perception becomes a subject for reflection. Beauty acts as a railing, holding us up against the abyss of uncertainty. History is fleeting, but in the depiction of everyday life, every gesture, every moment and every person can become the protagonist, even if only for a fraction of a second.
2.5 x 4m / 98.4 x 157 in
