BIO

Francis Leavey is a renowned Irish artist whose body of work has encompassed a wide range of styles and media throughout his career. His practice reflects a continual curiosity and willingness to evolve, grounded in close observation and a deep engagement with making.

In recent years, Leavey has turned his focus toward learning watercolour and further developing his drawing practice. This shift marks a quieter, more contemplative phase in his work, emphasizing attentiveness, restraint, and process.

His watercolour paintings focus on moments of beauty as he encounters them, seeking to honour time and place through light, colour, and gesture. These works capture fleeting impressions rather than fixed narratives, inviting the viewer into a shared experience of looking and presence.

ARTIST STATEMENT

I create work that explores our relationship with time and place, focusing on what is often forgotten or neglected. I am particularly drawn to spaces and figures that exist at the margins: houses left to decay, ageing faces, and environments shaped by absence as much as presence. These subjects carry visible traces of time, revealing layered histories and quiet resilience.

My practice is driven by an interest in slowing down perception. By directing attention to overlooked details, I aim to create moments of reflection that resist immediacy and disposability. The surfaces I engage with—whether architectural or human—become records of lived experience, shaped by memory, neglect, and endurance.

Through this work, I explore how time alters meaning and value, and how what is dismissed or ignored can hold deep emotional and historical significance. Ultimately, my work invites viewers to reconsider their relationship with time, place, and the often-unseen narratives embedded within them.