Leonard Baby Interviewed by ART OF CHOICE 

VillageOneArt collaborative artist Leonard Baby was interviewed by ART OF CHOICE to talk about femininity, androgyny, identity, and feelings of otherness in Baby’s work.

AOC: Has your work always taken on the style it currently embodies?

Baby: Since high school, my work has been described as “quiet” and “pensive,” so I think it’s always been the same at its core. Although, to me, my work feels vastly different from one week to the next. Stylistically, I’ve always felt very informed by Munch and Van Gogh. Munch’s work is always in the back of my mind while I paint. I’ve always worked with figuration in one way or another. I used to draw a lot more, but now I almost exclusively paint.

AOC: From where do you draw inspiration?

Baby: As I’ve mentioned, I draw a lot of inspiration stylistically from the impressionists, post-impressionists, and realists. The majority of my subject matter is appropriated from mid-century European cinema. I watch many movies on the weekends, which started as leisure and has since turned into research. I’ll see a scene or a frame I like that demands to be painted. I can’t quite sit still until I’ve reiterated it with paint. Though it is the subject matter I’m reiterating, there’s something about the atmosphere in these mid-century technicolor films that’s not like anything else and something I hope to capture.