“The Explosive Ecstasy of June Leaf”
June Leaf: Shooting from the Heart Exhibition Review
Hyperallergic, October 7, 2025
by Faye Hirsch
“Nobody knew what was in my mind anyway, least of all myself,” late artist June Leaf said in a 2010 interview about her creative awakening as a child in Chicago. “So little did [my mother] realize that what was being developed in her house was a volcano.” No wonder that, in many of the artist’s drawings, figures and rooms seem to explode, a messy residue bursting from within. Throughout her life, Leaf vividly recalled her burgeoning artistic self-awareness, which came in sometimes “ecstatic” bursts, and saw her artistic career within the trajectory of those bursts.
It makes sense, therefore, that Shooting from the Heart, a retrospective of Leaf, who died a little over a year ago at 94, arranges a generous 120 works thematically, rather than chronologically.