Bio: Leonard Baby, 29, New York City
Title of work: Love Is the Final Word
Where to see it: The work is on view in “Resting Babyface” with Half Gallery at Villa Carlotta in Hollywood, Los Angeles.
Three words to describe this work: Three words I would use to describe the work are hopeful, embarrassed, and confessional.
What was on your mind at the time: When I was making this painting, I was feeling blue and unlovable. I kept thinking about what it means to want love while also feeling unsure you’ll ever fully receive it. Painting this wedding scene became a kind of emotional respite, a way to sit inside warmth and tenderness when I wasn’t feeling much of that in my own life. As a gay man, the traditional Hollywood fantasy of marriage has always felt slightly out of reach or complicated, but the longing for that kind of devotion is still very real for me. The title comes from a place of cautious hope, a desire to believe that love, somehow, gets the last word.
An interesting feature that’s not immediately noticeable: The piece is dry-brush watercolor on panel. It can read like acrylic at first glance, but the process is slower, quieter, and more fragile. I like how that mirrors the emotional space the work came from, something delicate that still insists on being grand.
How the work reflects your practice as a whole: This painting reflects my broader practice in that I often return to past cultural images and rework them through my own emotional reality. I’m interested in nostalgia not as escape, but as a place where past triumphs provide hope to contemporary hardships.
One song that captures the work’s essence: “A Hundred Flowers” by The Innocence Mission.
