A Hundred Days with Leslie Silva
Artist and actor Leslie Silva was, like the rest of us, caught off-guard by the sudden emergence of the pandemic this year. M. Charlene Stevens talked with her about overcoming isolation and quarantine, stepping up to the #artmuseumchallenge on Instagram (@lesliebeakersilva), and growing her artistic practice during this difficult time.
“About two days after isolation began, I started to go into a dark place, because I don’t have a partner, parents, or any close family near me: I've been isolated to begin with. I said to myself: ‘You have a choice of how you want to get through this, because this is a long-haul deal. You can either enjoy the fuck out of this time, or you can give in to fear.’ That's how I've been coping: I've been enjoying absolutely everything, and I'm grateful for it: it's manifested into a new art form.”
“It's wild when you compare the first pictures that started the series and where I am now. I feel like I somehow opened this weird portal. I started doing the ‘Art Museum Challenge’ [posting selfies that resemble famous works of art] and I started to study Frida Kahlo and Dalí and in order to do the art challenge well, I had to inhabit their attitudes and photos. I don't know what happened, but I feel like I opened some portal studying them that has segued into my own thing.”
“I was very aware of the images that I was putting out and why one can be seen as beautiful and artistic and another one can have completely different meanings projected on it. That was particularly evident in the Mona Lisa one. What do we see as beautiful, what do we worship as beauty, and where do Black women sit in that? I am using myself as a vessel of African American beauty with all of its scars and getting in great shape in the process.”
“One evening, I was just sitting around when all of a sudden I thought: "go get a knife and go upstairs." I ran up to the roof while the sun was going down and I started jumping into the air holding the knife: I got that shot with the sun between my legs. It's insane: that kind of synthesis, or whatever you want to call it, has been happening with a lot of the photos. The cannon one was like that as well. I woke up at 4:30 in the morning and something told me: "go outside and start shooting." I went outside and I looked at the cannon and I thought, "go sit on that cannon." I went and I set up the shot and that's how I got the cannon photo.”
“I’m an actor: I graduated from Julliard and I was acting for many years. Since the pandemic, we haven't had any work. We haven't even been auditioning. I did not realize how miserable I was being an actor, because I feel like I'm more of an artist and I don't think I ever really fit into that actor persona. I haven't been this happy in decades and I know it's because I'm not auditioning. There's no rejection in it. Making this art, I've put myself into characters that I never would get cast as, simply because of the color of my skin. I'm giving myself the parts that I've always wanted to play.”
