Lea Belegris

Moxie

My current body of work includes a series of acrylic figurative paintings based on a personal collection of family heirloom photos taken in Greece and Canada during the mid-twentieth century - before and after my parents immigrated to Toronto. The original photos are wallet sized black and whites which were mailed between family members as a way of maintaining family connections despite geographic distance and the passage of time. The abstracted anonymity of the painted subjects and minimalist
color palette and details of the paintings are ways of expressing nostalgia and also of incomplete knowledge of the people and places depicted. In the case of this artwork, "Moxie", the energy of the figures in front of an expanse of water captured, for me, a moment of emerging resilience.