Leslie Hawk was born to a musician mother and painter father in Kentucky. In spite of this artful upbringing, she studied and worked for ten years as a court reporter. Hawk eventually grew dissatisfied with this profession, however, leading her to study art at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and later at the University of Minnesota. She then dedicated herself to working as a full-time sculptor, exhibiting her work mostly throughout the 80’s and 90’s. Using concrete, glass, and steel, Hawk’s figurative pieces investigate human nature and relationships.

Artist Statement

My culture seems to have gone mad. Everything my parents instilled in me has no relevance in the bigger world but is reduced to a personal code that simply makes me feel like a good person. Not a bad thing, to have a code which like a talisman against the big, bad world. But it's too bad that honesty and respect can't be commonly understood and expected.

My work started out as a self-portrait in a way, then encompassed family relationships, finally resting on conclusions and beliefs about mankind. More recently I've turned inward again, perhaps for reasons of self-preservation or self-protection, or as a means of focusing on what life includes that is good and positive, what is really important to me. I'm not sure of the reasons, but it's a nice change from trying to figure out the entire human race and its motivations.

I see my work marching out the door now, a small army that represents my small world: A good and always entertaining marriage, the beautiful place where I live and work and its wonderful population of wildlife, and my great luck at having found a career that enriches my life. This sculpture army carries with it positive energy, which goes out into the world, and then comes back to me. Positive energy does that, you know. It boomerangs.

So at a stage in my culture's history where it's easy to succumb to pessimism and lowered expectations, I refuse to participate. I'm creating my own world and peopling it as I see fit, with a small army that carries hope and positivism as weapons.

December 1992

Education: B.F.A. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 1986