Place des Arts alumni (former student)

Biography

I am Zell Leira, and I have had a pencil in my hands for as long as I can remember. I spent my youth drawing, painting, and illustrating with whatever media was available to me. Extra curricular art classes, such as the ones Place des Arts had to offer, helped further my artistic education. For my post secondary education, I explored my interest in sequential images and storytelling by studying Animation at Emily Carr University. Upon receiving my Bachelors of Fine Arts, I quickly obtained work in the local animation industry. After several years of working on a variety of TV shows, my multifaceted skillset as an animator and illustrator landed me a position at Klei Entertainment Inc. where I mostly worked on the video game Don’t Starve Together doing a wide array of tasks involving character design, illustration, animation.

After many years of making digital art and animation with a team of people, I felt an imperative to pursue my calling as an independent traditional media artist that I had put aside in favour of being in the animation and video game industry. I am inspired by artists in any practice who fearlessly put their own unique identity on display, and am resolved to imbue my own artistic expression with my newfound unabashed boldness and sense of self and assuredness I have gained in my adult years.

Artist Statement

Zell Leira’s expressive and fantastical work explores the themes and emotional experience of plunging head first into a gender and sexuality based identity transformation. The aesthetic of their work draws upon various influences close to their heart, such as the larger than life worlds of fantastical animated media and video games, patterns inspired by the fluidity of the natural world, motifs in the clothing of their Romanian cultural background, as well as psychedelic and surrealist imagery. Their craft draws upon their experience in a variety of disciplines combined with self teaching, from growing up dabbling in various traditional media to the skills they developed working in the animation and games industry. Zell’s artistic journey of going back to passionately embrace painting and creating in the tactile world rather than the digital one mirrors his personal journey of breaking free from a life that left his heart and soul empty in favour of one that embraces his authentic queerness and expression of self.

Zell is currently exploring the style that has emerged in the process of reconnecting with traditional painting media, and his newfound goal is to continue to challenge himself into making increasingly bigger, bolder, complex visual feasts that express the fullness of their identity in striking ways.

iambigzell.com

Instagram: @iambigzell

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