Places I’d Rather Be is a contemplation on wanderlust — a visual daydream for those with a sense of nostalgia for a time and place they have never experienced.

In this new collection of original works and limited edition prints, Leonard portrays subjects disconnected from their immediate environment, pining for a destination where urgency and discomfort melt away, replaced by wide-open roads, vast spaces and a gentle, enveloping sun.

This pensive series of drawings and paintings uses a restrained colour palette in transparent mediums, such as ink and pencil, to create subtle shifts in tone that are both delicate and spontaneous. Muted washes of colour bleed into one another as the isolated figures fade in and out of their surroundings, like fragments of a memory that can’t be placed.

Absorbed in private self-reflection, Leonard’s figures indulge their inherent desire for adventure and reinvention. At times voyeuristic and evocative, their languid bodies stray between elusive moments. Layering elements of nature over relaxed poses and easy gestures creates dream-like compositions akin to a page torn from a traveller’s sketchbook.

Emma Leonard is a Melbourne-based freelance illustrator with a focus on fashion, beauty and portraiture. Emma combines traditional transparent media — usually ink, pencil and watercolour with digital techniques to create carefully considered renderings of delicate femininity, fragility and ethereal beauty. Taking inspiration from film, literature and nature, her work almost exclusively features strong yet sensitive women who transfix the viewer with their melancholic gaze. Emma has worked with a number of high profile clients both locally and internationally including Covergirl NYC, Rebecca Taylor, Sportsgirl, Clemenger BBDO, Colgate and Hyatt.

Solo shows: East Of The Sun, West Of The Moon, No Vacancy, Melbourne (2013). Select group shows include: Varial, No Vacancy, Melbourne (2016); Awake, Off The Kerb, Melbourne (2016); Made In Melbourne, Auguste Clown, Melbourne (2016); Duality, No Vacancy, Melbourne (2015); Risographica 3, Lamington Drive, Melbourne (2015); Le Petit Four, Friends Of Leon, Sydney (2015); Hither, Thither and Yon, Nook, Melbourne (2014); Athene Noctua, Espionage, Adelaide (2013); Lepus Australis, No Vacancy, Melbourne (20133); We’re All Mad Here, Espionage, Adelaide (2013).