Leo Costelloe

Overview
Leo Costelloe
“My seemingly banal and haunting sculptural practice draws from the zeitgeist of digital femininity.” - Leo Costelloe
Leo Costelloe (they/them) explores the transient and sentimental nature of objects through their work in glass, metal and silver. In Costelloe’s practice, otherwise banal items are imbued with complex emotional and symbolic resonances informed by the artist’s tenuous rural childhood and grinding coming-of-age in the East London queer scene. A familiar object, such as a simple bow, takes on new meaning when rendered in glass and displayed on a gallery wall; it becomes a somewhat haunting, ghostly apparition or perhaps the manifestation of a long-forgotten childhood memory.
 
Costelloe’s practice borrows from the zeitgeist of digital femininity, with leitmotifs including dolls, flowers, stars and aforementioned bows reappearing across their oeuvre. Yet, the artist’s identification with the girlish is inherently subversive; by literally recasting historically feminine signifiers in unexpected materials, Costelloe disrupts gendered assumptions. Reproducing the folds of a silk ribbon in metal, the artist harnesses material dissonance as a tool to reframe an object's presupposed affiliations. Costelloe's engagement with the decorative and their immense attention to detail lend the artist’s work a uniquely precious quality: each piece gently demands that it be cherished. When taken together, Costelloe's entrancing works assume an almost mythic quality, acting as an invitation to embrace the artist’s delicately constructed fantasy. 
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Biography
Leo Costelloe

Leo Costelloe (b.1993) is an Irish-Australian artist who lives and works in London. They completed a BA in Jewellery Design at Central Saint Martins (2021). They have presented two previous solo exhibitions at Ridley Road Project Space, London (2022) and Kupfer Gallery, London (2023) and a duo show at Guts Gallery, London (2023) curated by Helen Neven. They were awarded the Swarovski Scholar Award (2020) after having been a finalist for the same in 2019. Their work has been featured in group exhibitions by galleries including: Kupfer Gallery, London (2023); Indigo + Madder, London (2023); Photobook Gallery, London (2023) and Ridley Road Project Space, London (2022) curated by George Henry Longly. They have worked with a variety of brands and institutions including: Show Studio, The British Fashion Council and Dover Street Market, New York. In September 2020, they undertook a residency in glass with Artist Andrea Spencer in Northern Ireland.

 
Exhibitions
Works