About Leslie
Bio
Leslie (Brown) Volle (b. 1957, Houston, TX) is a painter who was raised in a family of artists on Staten Island, New York. Leslie has shown her work in solo and group exhibitions across the United States and internationally.
Leslie holds a BFA from Kansas City Art Institute in Kansas City, Missouri, and an MA-TESOL/Linguistics from State University of New York, Stony Brook. Leslie lives and works in New York City with a second studio for encaustic painting in Sayville, New York.
Statement
I use flora as my subject matter to explore the emotions we communicate and to create a visual language for human connection. Through plants, I probe the layered nature of feelings—how emotions mingle like fog, entwine, or collide like waves.
My process begins with drawing plants and observing their patterns, which evolve into compositions inspired by human social interaction. I'm drawn to the kinship between human complexity and the natural world. Plants grow with an almost gestural language: a willow's limbs hang heavy with melancholy, aspens tremble in the wind. These mirror our own body language in uncanny ways. Plants connect through space as people do through dance. Like aging bodies, they contract and distill into essence—branches stiffen, leaves shrivel, and familiar human gestures emerge.
I paint with beeswax, resin, and pigment on cradled panels ranging from hand-sized to human-sized. Encaustic—an ancient painting method dependent on heat, time, and layering—shapes my work through a dialogue of building up and scraping away until color and line resolve into a unified whole. The surface can suggest the matte softness of skin or the glossy sheen of hardened sap. Wax layers become a metaphor for social interaction itself: transparent yet obscuring, revealing depths while concealing what lies beneath.
CV
LESLIE B. VOLLE
(She/Her)
b. 1957 in Houston, TX. Lives in New York, NY
EDUCATION
2021 — NYSCA/NYFA Artist as Entrepreneur Program Huntington Arts Council, Huntington, NY
2010 — Workshop “Advanced Teaching Encaustic” R&F Encaustics, Long Island City, NY
2002 — Master of Arts in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages/Linguistics, SUNY Stony Brook, NY
1981 — Bachelor of Fine Arts, Painting and Printmaking, Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, MO
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2022 — Twig Stories, Kleinhelter Gallery, New Albany, IN
2014 — Circledale to Library Lane: Encaustic Paintings, Sachem Public Library, Holbrook, NY
1996 — LBVolle Recent Paintings, East End Arts Council, Riverhead, NY
1994 — LBVolle Recent Paintings, Sea Cliff Gallery, Sea Cliff, NY
1982 — Solo Drawing Exhibition, Cerrillos Cafe, Cerrillos, NM
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025 — Transcultural Exchange Global Broadcast Exhibition, (video exhibition, work appears beginning at minute 17:30) Boston, MA
2025 — 39th Annual Bradley International Print & Drawing Exhibition, Peoria Riverfront Museum, Bradley University, Peoria, IL
2021 — Small Works Show, Kleinhelter Gallery, New Albany, IN
2019 — Spring Invitational, Kleinhelter Gallery, New Albany, IN
2019 — Encaustic and Etchings, Public Library, Sayville, NY
2014 — Span and Dialogue American Contemporary Print Exhibition, Guanlan, China
2014 — Patchworks 2014 Juried Exhibition, Patchogue Arts Center, Patchogue, NY
2014 — Member's Juried Show, Guild Hall, Southampton, NY | Juror: Robert Storr
2013 — Art Biologic, Limner Gallery, Hudson, NY
2002 — Opening Exhibition, Pitcher-Masters Gallery, Deer Island, ME
1995 — 20th Annual Juried Fine Arts Exhibition, Smithtown Township Arts Council, Smithtown, NY
1995 — Juried Painting Show, East End Arts Council, Riverhead, NY
1994 — Small Works International, Amos Eno Gallery, New York, NY
1993 — Juried Painting Show, Sea Cliff Gallery, Sea Cliff, NY
1993 — 38th Annual Exhibition, Huntington Township Art League, Huntington, NY
1991 — Women in the Visual Arts Drawing Exhibition, Erector Square Gallery, New Haven, CT
1984 — Multimedia Show, Village Voice Bookstore Gallery, Paris, France
1981 — Senior Painting Show, Kansas City Art Institute, Kemper Gallery, Kansas City, MO
AWARDS
1995 — Best in Show, Juried Painting Show, East End Arts Council, Riverhead, NY
1995 — Honorable Mention, Member's Juried Show, Guild Hall, Southampton, NY | Juror: Robert Storr
1993 — Best in Show, Juried Painting Show, Sea Cliff Gallery, Sea Cliff NY
RESIDENCIES
2021 — NYSCA/NYFA Artist as Entrepreneur Program, Huntington Art Council, Huntington, NY
2017 — Jenny House Residency, Baie Sainte-Marie, New Edinburgh, Nova Scotia, Canada
2014 — Guanlan Original Printmaking Base Residency, Guanlan, China
2012 — Artists Invite Artists Program, Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Newcastle, ME
COLLABORATIONS & COMMISSIONS
2016 — Délivrances, Virtual Exhibition on Ce qui reste | Contemporary Poetry Review with poems by Jennifer Barber selected from The Sliding Boats Our Bodies Made
1987 — Set design and production for “New and Recent Dances” by Betsy Hultin, Sponsored by Performance Space 122
PUBLICATIONS
“Span and Dialogue American Contemporary Print Exhibition Catalog,” Guanlan, China, 2014
PRESS
Lisa Zamm, “Encaustic & Etchings” Patch.com/New York, Jan. 31, 2019
H. Harrison, “20th Annual Juried Fine Arts Exhibition” New York Times, Sunday Nov. 12, 1995
Phyllis Braff, “Art: L.B.Volle,” New York Times, Sunday May 8, 1994
Helen Harrison, “Art Review,” New York Times, Long Island Section, Sunday May 23, 1993