Symbols & Narrative
How symbolism and narrative function in my work
My work often begins in solitude. Stories and research travel with me into the studio, or are born there. While working, symbolic figures appear naturally: fragments of nature, inner landscapes, a figure carrying something that does not yet have a name. Colour also plays a role. Soft pink can sit beside a rough layer. What may appear fragile at first can hold strength and movement beneath the surface.
Symbolism does not arise beforehand. It develops alongside the painting process and gains meaning through what emerges within the image. For me, absolute, as a carrier of experience. In this way, each work becomes an open narrative, leaving space for interpretation and recognition.
Transformation as Narrative
When change becomes the story
Personal symbols in the mix
Symbols do not appear on command. A house in vast nature, a bird with power, a mark that resists control, these are not decorative elements, but parts of a larger whole. The tension between soft and rough, quiet and expressive, is essential. It is on this edge that meaning arises, where imagination and reality meet.
Symbols: hare and deer
Years ago, I began sketching female figures with a hare, Drasper the Hare, originating from the bedtime stories my father told near the dunes where I grew up. The hare first appeared as vulnerable, later as resilient and steadfast. In my paintings, it returned in female figures carrying small hare dolls.
Later, the deer appeared. Stronger,prouder, standing in the landscape. For me, the deer became a symbol of transformation and grounded strength.
Emerging symbols
These animals are not chosen rationally. They appear intuitively during the process and are often only fully understood afterward. The hare and the deer reflect my own process of growth and change. I share my father’s fables, my memories, and these symbols not to explain, but to open space—for images that can be read, not fixed in meaning. The house is an emerging symbol. It;s popping up at the Icelandic Houses series and Sneaky hidden sunflowers.
The following text is a literary reflection by Karin Melis, written in response to my artistic process and the symbolism of the hare.
Moving in the liminal
I am hare. In all my appearances Leonoor gives lovingly form to the archetypes living within herself. Extraordinary. Fantastic. I am honored she chose me to enter liminal spaces, transforming without knowledge beforehand where she will find herself. Let me be your guide, was my whisper and she took up her artistic arms and gave life to me. In these paintings of the artist Leonoor shares how she gives light and form to the archetypes living within her. Let is be an inspiration to you.
I who live within you, express who you are
For an endlessly long time you kept me hidden in a drawer, but I forgive you for that, of course I do. It is not always easy to expose your invisible, intimate parts to the light of life. The daze in my eyes, caused by the stifling closeness of the wooden plank above me—no doubt another drawer that was opened daily; I suspect that’s where you kept your makeup. There I lay, in my original form as a limp doll. You painted me dangling from your arm. A limp hare. It did not trouble me in the least. Even though you painted me in every conceivable guise, I was your inseparable companion. For the attentive observer: part of you.
Being lost in the world is exposed, not so much experienced by you yourself, the owner of being lost. Or was this temporary swift of fate secretly the owner of you? But it was seen by me, the limp, seemingly will-less doll you carried everywhere with you. You have no idea how I had to restrain myself when the light suddenly fell upon me as you pulled the drawer open. You looked at me with wide eyes, as if seeing me for the first time. Spreading large sheets out on the floor and I bathed, rediscovered, in the light. I was seen; something inside me rejoiced, and I felt how unknown forces took hold of me. I practically burst out of my skin. I saw how restless it made you, pacing through your living room.
From that moment on you never let me go. Paint, charcoal, brushes and tools were taken up with fire, and I—whom you had kept hidden for so long—came to life in my full glory, life-sized, yes, larger than yourself, on your sheets of paper, on the linen. From a limp doll dangling from your arm, I seemed to bud and expand in all my facets, springing from you yourself. I wanted to say that in your creative drive you crossed boundaries, but those boundaries existed only to give me form. I who live within you and stand life-sized, visibly present, in your exhibitions.
– Author- Karin Melis
More info about a woman and a hare – Read about my artistic vision >
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