Leslie van der Sluys has been making linocuts of flora and fauna subjects since he was at high school, where he was introduced to the genre by Sydney relief printmaker, Florence Higgs.  Through the example of her own work, she introduced him to the rich formal and decorative potential of Australian native flora.  After an informal apprenticeship as a landscape painter in both London and Melbourne with John Perceval during the 1960s, he taught art in secondary schools while pursuing plein air landscape painting around Heidelberg and the Yarra Valley on weekends.  In 1980, he returned to his former interest in linocut and, in the following year, became a full-time printmaker, employing his earlier experience as a watercolourist in the hand-colouring of his single block prints.  Although it is painstakingly laborious, he prefers this process to the printed-colour method because of its greater luminosity and the opportunity for subtle modulation of tone and hue.

Leslie van der Sluys was born in Melbourne in 1939.  His general art training was undertaken at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and later at the Melbourne State College.  He also has a BA (Art History and Classical Studies) from the University of Melbourne.