In the summer of 2023, RMCAD students interviewed our 2022-2024 Resident Artists in their studios. Their video interview of Shieka Leslie-Eke highlights how her work is influenced by Nigerian culture, and the ways in which she explores her ethnic realities & traditions in a modern convention.
Shieka Leslie-Eke, a Denver-based artist & educator, is forever mystified about life's interconnects. Reared by several generations of black American artists & spiritual teachers with Southern roots, she’s guided by both ethereal & tangible elements.
Reflecting on her ethnic heritage & American culture, Shieka digests and confronts what she sees as western brainwashing using materials such as paint, clay, beads, photography, and organic elements through various mediums including animations, sculpture, print, music, and curation.
“Contemporary art, to me, is kind of like the opposite of what we learn as stuffy fine arts. Contemporary art is inclusive and embracive—is that a word?—of people who like doing new things and don’t want to be stuck in the box of whoever said this was art.”
Watch the video of Shieka in her RedLine studio to learn more about her and her practice!
VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION:
“My name is Shieka, and I am an artist, an educator, and a mentor. I really enjoy doing all types of arts except for oil pastels. I do not like that. But right now, I'm focusing on photography and digital collage, and I'm experimenting with light and STEAM, science, technology, engineering, arts, and math. I've been teaching that for a few years now, and so now, I'm kind of taking it more serious in my own work.
“Soon, in a couple months, I'll also be working with metals. Well, I have been working with metals, and I'll be working with glass, which is all kind of an extension of that STEAM stuff.
“I like organic materials, and you can't get more organic than light. At the same time, I love wood. I do some wood sculpture and anything organic, but it might seem like it's on the opposite end of the spectrum. But I love STEAM. I love working with metals and technology, but if you think about it, technology is made out of organic materials.
“So glass, well, glass is a processed organic material, sand, but I see that all as an extension of organicness. I think that the easiest way to learn something is just by playing around, and yeah. That's how I got into just buying cheap stuff off the internet and playing around with it. I'm still playing, and getting excited about people that I know who are working with those materials and, yeah, just keep taking it a step further.
“There are definitely themes in my work, and the themes are play, organicness, and I would say healing, which goes along with discovery, which is an extension of play. I'm a nerd. So I'm a teacher. I'm an educator. So the more I learn, the more I get interested in something, and so yeah. That part, just whatever I'm learning, is always a part of it.
“The biggest theme, probably, in my life is just discovering who I am. So I call myself a Black American, but I have multi-ethnicities. And so just discovering who I am, what that means, who my ancestors were, and where they're from, that always becomes a part of my work. So self-discovery. Mm-hmm.
“Yes, and I actually, I don't display those pieces, which is interesting. I never thought about that before. This piece right here, that sculpture, that was my first serious wood sculpture, and I was going through so much. So it's almost like my emotions are in that piece, stored in that piece. And so a lot of people have asked to buy that, and I won't sell it. I just love it. So I would say, yeah, that's probably my favorite piece and has the most emotional attachment.
“So I am actually, I know, at least I'm the third generation, the third, part of the third generation of artists in my family. So I don't know what happened before my grandfather, but I know my grandfather was an artist and an educator. We would have these family meetings where he would teach us things, and he drew these big posters of everything that he wanted us to know. He passed away from cancer a few years ago, and I have most of those posters. He would, by hand, make all these pamphlets for us, and my first professional delving into the arts was as a graphic and multimedia designer. So I look at these like, ‘He did all this by hand. Wow.’
“My mother was an artist, and she always pushed us. I mean, my earliest memories is my mom giving us ceramics to paint, and having workshops, and teaching around Denver and also in Oklahoma. So now, I can see, okay, so myself and a few of my siblings, and now the next generation, my children and nieces and nephews, it's like most of us are artists, which is cool. It's really cool to see.
“Contemporary art, to me, is kind of like the opposite of what we learn as stuffy fine arts. Contemporary art is inclusive and embracive—is that a word?—of people who like doing new things and don't want to be stuck in the box of whoever said this was art.”
