Biography
Leah Oates has a B.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design and a M.F.A. from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is a Fulbright Fellow for graduate study at Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland.
Oates has had solo shows in the NYC area at Susan Eley Fine Art, The MTA Lightbox Project at 42nd Street, The Arsenal Gallery in Central Park, The Open Center, The Center for Book Arts and The Brooklyn Public Library Main Branch and had had solo show nationally and internationally at Black Cat Artspace in Toronto, Real Art Ways in Connecticut, Sara Nightingale Gallery in Long Island, Artemisia Gallery in Chicago and at Galerie Joella in Turku, Finland.
Oates has been in group shows in the NYC area at Susan Eley Fine Art, Lichtundfire Gallery, Wave Hill, Edward Hopper House, Chashama, Williamsburg Art Center, Metaphor Projects Gallery, Usagi NYC, Denise Bibro Fine Art, Nurture Art Gallery and The Pen and Brush Gallery.
Oates has been part of group shows in Toronto at John. Aird Gallery, Gallery 1313, Propeller Gallery, Gladstone Hotel, Remote Gallery, Arta Gallery and The Papermill Gallery.
Oates has had press and been featured in numerous publications including Oates has had press in Al-Tiba9 Contemporary Art Magazine, The Shanghai Literary Review, Mud Season Review, dArt Magazine, The Tulane Review, Vallum Journal, Calyx Journal, Blue Mesa Review, Friends of the Artist, GASHER Journal, Flumes Literary Journal and the 805 Lit + Art Journal.
Project Statement
The Transitory Space series deals with urban and natural locations that are transforming due to the passage of time, altered natural conditions and a continual human imprint. In everyone and in everything there are daily changes and this series articulates fluctuations in the photographic image and captures movement through time and space.
Humans leave traces and artifacts of our consciousness everywhere in our environment. Contradictory realities can be found co-existing wherever we look. They’re in what we choose to think; what we choose to believe; and how we choose to act and they can be found in what we choose to observe.
When I look back on a moment it’s full of impressions and multiple exposures capture this. I make multiple exposures on specific frames in camera which allows me to display a more complete correlation of experiences that a single exposure just misses.
Every moment captured on film is over as soon as the shutter clicks, recording the ephemeral. Yet, in reality, there is always a visual cacophony of experience and we live in many realities at once. Multiple exposures express the way we experience the world as our perception is not fixed.
Transitory spaces have a messy human energy that is perpetually in the present yet continually altering. They are endlessly interesting, alive places where there is a great deal of beauty and fragility. They are temporary monuments to the ephemeral nature of existence.
