Frontispace is pleased to announce an exhibition of work by UR alum Jeff Leavitt. Leavitt’s recent work illustrates relatable experiences of growth and human life by using repeated images of toy-like robots. The robots, which are placed in various fictional scenarios, are intended to represent and poke fun at the cyclical and often futile nature of the human experience.
Jeff Leavitt is a Rochester-area visual artist who makes vibrantly colored, toy-like paintings, sculptures, and multimedia works, creating pieces that function as both conceptual artworks and posable action figures. Born and raised in Schenectady, New York, Leavitt has been involved in art-making since he was in elementary school. He received his bachelor of fine arts in studio arts from the University of Rochester in 2017 and is currently studying to get his master’s degree from Rochester Institute of Technology in the same field. At the University of Rochester, his work largely revolved around the dichotomy between two-dimensional and three-dimensional media. For his honors show, titled Granted, he created polyhedral canvas sculptures accompanied by anthropomorphic “paint people” in order to explore the relationship between paint and canvas. His senior thesis exhibition, Things Between Walls, was a 1/22 scale model of Sage Art Center, split apart into different sections and reimagined with fantasy scenarios and bright color schemes.
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”
-George Bernard Shaw