“Recently, I have moved away from my lens-based focus on the monumental conflicts of the mid 20th century. I am now working to create sculptures that draw attention to the current global battle with climate change.”
Leslie Hossack’s fine art photographs have been exhibited across Canada from Vancouver to Newfoundland and in the United States. Her work has been featured in many national and international publications including: The National Gallery of Canada Magazine and The Globe and Mail; The Chartwell Bulletin and The Churchill Project, Hillsdale College in the US; and The Literary Review and Apollo in the UK. In addition, Hossack’s photographs have been presented in various books including “War Art in Canada, A Critical History” by Laura Brandon (2021) and “The Origins of Totalitarianism” by Hannah Arendt, The Folio Society (2022).
Hossack’s work is held in private collections at home and abroad, and in public collections including: Library and Archives Canada; Canadian War Museum; Diefenbunker: Canada’s Cold War Museum; City of Vancouver; Nikkei National Museum, Burnaby; National Churchill Library and Center, Washington DC; Center for Creative Photography, Tucson AZ; Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge UK; and in the libraries of the Sigmund Freud Museum, Vienna; David Collection, Copenhagen; Hirschsprung Collection, Copenhagen; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto and National Gallery of Canada.
Hossack has been recognized with many awards. In 2012, she was selected by a national jury to participate in The Canadian Forces Artists Program and deployed to Kosovo. In 2013, Hossack’s series Stalin’s Architectural Legacy won a top prize from the International Photography Awards. When Canada celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2017, Hossack was invited to participate in Ottawa’s sesquicentennial Karsh exhibition. Also in 2017, she completed an artist residency at The Sussex Contemporary Gallery. In 2019, Hossack was welcomed as a researching artist in the Library and Archives of the National Gallery of Canada.
In 2016, Hossack’s book Registered: The Japanese Canadian Experience During World War II (2015) won first prize in the SPAO A+ Photo Book competition. Her other books include Cities of Stone, People of Dust (2011); Berlin Studien (2011); Testament: Leslie Hossack in Kosovo (2015); Charting Churchill: An Architectural Biography of Sir Winston Churchill (2016); H-Hour, Normandy 1944 (2017); Freud Through the Looking-Glass (2018); Traced: The Arcane Legacy of Scotland’s Freemasons (2019), At Home: Hammershøi (2021) and Constructed Recollection 2022.
The photographs featured in these books are part of Hossack’s larger body of work that explores: Hitler’s Berlin, Stalin’s Moscow, Mussolini’s Rome, Churchill’s London, contested sites in Jerusalem, the NATO Headquarter Camp in Kosovo, buildings linked to the Japanese Canadian internment during WW II, the D-Day landing beaches of Normandy, the Nazi occupied Channel Islands, Sigmund Freud’s pre-war Vienna, the Freemasons of Scotland, and Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi.
Focusing on the built environment and related archival documents, Hossack has completed major studies of iconic architecture in: Vancouver 2008-2011 and 2013-2014, Paris 2009, Berlin 2010, Jerusalem 2011, Moscow 2012, Kosovo 2013, London 2014, Normandy 2015, Vienna 2016, The Channel Islands 2017, Rome 2017, Scotland 2018, and Copenhagen 2019. Closer to home, her Ottawa work includes the Diefenbunker and the now vanished Canadian Forces Base Rockcliffe.
Recently, Hossack has moved away from a lens-based focus on the monumental conflicts of the mid 20th century. She is now working to create sculptures that draw attention to the current global battle to deal with climate change.
I have long been drawn to iconic locations associated with the major events of the last century. In fact, my entire body of work was held together by my interest in the massive structures and powerful personalities who shaped the 20th century. I took great interest in researching the history of the locations and events that I explored, and the written descriptions that I composed formed an integral part of my artistic practice.
This is still the case with my new body of work INFERNO. Like previous projects, INFERNO is research-base. My sculpture collection, “Earth, Air, Fire and Water,” exposes objectively measurable aspects of climate changes such as unprecedented wildfires, soaring temperatures, melting Arctic ice, and rising sea levels. The INFERNO series is data driven. Although the works are abstract, they are accurate representations of scientific records.
My work continues to revolve around the theme of change and continuity. But underlying all of this is my insatiable search for meaning and an insistent examination of the singular question of simple human survival.
OTTAWA, Canada
Leslie Hossack’s work is represented
by de Montigny Contemporary.
SYDNEY, Australia
Leslie Hossack’s work is represented
by Freeman Gallery.
PHOTOGRAPH:
Self-Reflection, Number 13, Vienna 2016, from the series The Freud Photographs by Leslie Hossack