Born in Sydney, at a time when kids went out to play after breakfast and didn’t return home until dinner time, Leslye Cole spent most of her childhood exploring the rocks, waterfalls, flora and fauna of the bushland nature reserve opposite her family home at Lane Cove. This early influence ensured she would only truly feel comfortable surrounded by trees and nature.
After a successful commercial art career in Sydney working as an illustrator and art director on the world’s leading brands, Cole yearned to devote her time to fine art, and to be surrounded by her beloved trees and nature once again. Her subject matter increasingly portrayed pastoral themes from photos taken on the many family trips throughout rural NSW, and in 2012 she made a tree change to the Tamworth region, commencing full-time fine art studio practice.
Aesthetic elements absorbed throughout Cole’s career now infiltrate her diverse body of work. Design, colour, and composition are central, but also her expertise in story telling — a skill honed while working on storyboards. Her paintings include narratives observed in the Australian landscape, people who live and work on the land, farm animals, and portraiture — artwork which often stirs an emotional response in the viewer. Many of her paintings have been purchased by collectors as gifts, with common feedback being, “the recipient burst into tears of joy”.
A self-taught artist, Leslye Cole paints in oils and mixed media. Her work has won multiple awards in NSW and QLD. Highlights include being a finalist in the Sir John Sulman Prize, Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney, and the Portia Geach Memorial Award for leading Australian female portrait artists, S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney. Cole’s work has been hung in multiple group exhibitions, three solo shows, one at Bridge Street Gallery, Uralla, and two at Weswal Gallery, Tamworth, with another upcoming in May, 2024.
Works are held in Australia, England, New Zealand, Canada, North America & Luxembourg.
Farmer’s Best Worker, oil on canvas.