About the Artist

Leslie Morgan was born and raised in the middle of a Texas desert where the nearest ocean was 600 miles away. As a kid, she dreamed of tropical islands, pirate boats and sea creatures. The public pool served as her primary mode of escape and a therapy for childhood asthma.

Her art is hybrids of painting, photography, printmaking, recycled rusted bits and collage into unique mixed media. She explores ideas tied to nostalgia, female icons, boating, the environment, preservation of our oceans, consumerism and repurposing materials. Her whimsical use of found objects, paint and photography allows one to experience the many magical nuances of water, both above its surface, below its depths and everywhere in between. She speaks to this art genre in a whole new and exciting language.

She splits her time between Santa Cruz and San Francisco and is an Open Water and Synchronized swimmer.

Artist’s Statement

Water is my passion, my hope, my medicine!  Because it connects us all and is always at risk, I seek to make work that gives the observer all of the feelings that water evokes for me.  Impressions of weightlessness, buoyancy, freedom, happiness, beauty, lightness, the awe and fear of the unknown!  With great respect for water in all of its forms I wish to emulate it’s powerfulness and have that transported into our daily lives since we cannot always visit a pool, a river, a stream or an ocean as often as we need too to be replenished by its exquisite nature.