Leslie Thornton’s work is whimsical, invigorating, compelling and light-hearted. With an abiding interest in geography and geopolitics, he looks at cities, landscapes, buildings and places through a lens uniquely his own. Leslie takes what the seemingly ordinary and honours them with a tinge of facetiousness and a tonne of skill.
In his fifty-year career, Leslie has had over forty solo exhibitions and participated in numerous group shows. Born in Queensland, Les escaped as a young man, with a training in civil engineering, a love of lighting and a feel for the surreal. Arriving in Melbourne, he soon left to make Castlemaine – then, as now, a haven for the arty counter culture – his home. With a background in technical drawing, ticket and sign writing, his art shows a meticulousness coupled with a designer’s sense of colour and proportion. His body of paintings mirrors his interests: local icons‚ bridges, shops, buildings and mountains. His practice, supported by a life-long eye for collecting also encompasses clocks, cartoons, collages, deconstructed objects and sculpture from electrical components.
Sir Leslie Thornton: Castlemaine Art Museum’s First Blockbuster
Thornton has become the quintessential Castlemaine artist and chronicler with his playful Australian-centric approach, capturing contemporary life in central Victoria in all its remarkable mundanity.
This exhibition showcases over 130 of his most beguiling and distinctive works. This is: Castlemaine Art Museum’s and Les Thornton’s First Blockbuster.
“Les takes an idea and runs with it – in all sorts of directions. He takes it to the extremes of possibility and logic and then takes it further.” Mark Anstey, Lot 19
“His work is unpretentious, humble, communal, it doesn’t take itself too seriously. Like Les, humour is its greatest wisdom, asset and form of communion.” Candy Stevens.
Sir Leslie Thornton: First Blockbuster
Castlemaine Art Museum
22 March until 31 August 2025
Opening
Sat 22 March at 2pm [All welcome]
Opening by Em. Pr. Chris McAuliffe
EMERITUS PROFESSOR,
ANU School of Art & Design
Free entry. Gallery Opening Hours: Thurs-Sat 11am–4pm, Sun 12pm–4pm.
Public Program as part of the Exhibition
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