Brian Leatart

Biography

Brian Leatart is an internationally acclaimed photographer of limitless imagination and powerful vision. His work is distinguished by learned classicism nuanced by an irreverent point of view. His idiosyncratic visual language is informed by the emotion and style of his artistic upbringing.

Brian Leatart was born in Los Angeles and began shooting street and landscape photography at a very young age. By 18, he had amassed a portfolio of black-and-white landscape photographs and continued his art education in photography first at Cal State Northridge in their Fine Art department, moving on to photography and film at Art Center College of Design for four years where he graduated with a Fine Arts degree.

Right out of school he began shooting editorial assignments focusing on portraits, fashion and location. "From my first assignment, I knew that photography would be my life’s passion." With that passion, he would transform ordinary reality "into my way of seeing things." Eventually Brian segued into shooting food for both editorial, books and advertising and has continued in this specialized niche creatively and successfully ever since. Brian never stopped exploring conceptually-driven photography on its own and has devoted the last 10 years to building a body of work split between traditional film images of landscapes and digital composites of Found Objects and portraits incorporating objects. He has shown in galleries in Los Angeles, Palm Springs and on a monthly basis in Joshua Tree, California.

He maintains studios in Hollywood and Joshua Tree.

Artist's Statement

"Photography for me involves the ultra exact capture of reality and the absolutely faithful repository of memory. I think the essence of an image lies in the play of proportions, the point of view and the spacial plausability that is caught in the interpretation."

"Figurative language, image recycling, dislocation of spaces and objects, expressionism and a sense of humor make up my high definition and digitally manipulated reality of the modified image. My photographs are the limitation of what is real that amplifies the unreal effect, bringing us closer to the fantastic or dreamlike."

CV