About Me
Bio
Aimee Leal is an Austin-based traditional artist with a predominantly self-taught technique. She works with paint and ink, but her specialty is working with pencils, HB, and colored. Her work explores the connection between the human body and ideals of the divine and references the mythos that inspired artists throughout the Renaissance and Classical periods in art history.
Aimee is currently a studio art major at Texas State University in San Marcos with a concentration in drawing, and she is currently working on a student group exhibition to show her work in a more professional environment for the first time. She hopes the exhibition will show what she needs to improve in skill and publicly show her art.
My Statement
I am a traditional artist who primarily draws bold, realistic, figurative art.
I find references online of bodybuilders, athletes, and people with muscular physiques and crop the images to change the narrative of each photo before I draw them in their new state.
I create my pieces to challenge the perception and stereotypes of the bodybuilding community, which include vanity, low intelligence, and aggressive attitudes. The goal is to open the mind of the viewer and to think of the reasons why we find these bodies as ideal and to inspire beauty in body and art.
My drawings reference and appropriate Greek and Roman statues. I combine those ideals with the aesthetics of bodybuilding to challenge the viewer to change their perspective on the community and why they do it. I am in the process of my own bodybuilding journey, and I’m hoping to bring about an artistic renaissance that pushes back against the mainstream contemporary art coming out today while also giving the viewer a creative glimpse into the world of building your body for an ideal aesthetic.