The Daily Muse: Leslie Morgan, Mixed Media 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. Diving into the water then was the birth of a lifetime obsession and joy with aquatic experiences. She spent her early professional years in Key West working as a psychologist during the day in hospitals, jails, nursing homes and clinics. Her free time was spent anchored behind different dessert islands up and down The Keys as well as in the Bahamas. Simultaneously, Morgan developed a semi-professional career as a synchronized swimmer and dove into her current profession as an artist.

In 2002, Morgan retired from the field of Psychology and moved to San Francisco. With a history in photography, she began the journey of transforming this art form into her unique hybrid of painting and collage. Her memories from Texas and the Keys serve as undercurrents to the concepts in her work. She explores ideas tied to preservation not only in regards to memory, family & female icons, but in regards to the environment, consumerism and re-purpose materials.

Morgan has a studio located at Arc Studios in San Francisco’s bustling SOMA district. She also works from her custom built studio surrounded by redwoods in the Bonny Doon Mountains just north of Santa Cruz. Her work has been reviewed by the SF Examiner, 96 Hours Magazine, and ArtSlant. She has shown work with galleries in California, Oregon, Georgia & Texas. She is an active participant with ArtSpan’s annual Open Studios in San Francisco & Visual Aids.

My artwork has come from memories of summers spent leaping and diving, doing cannonballs and back flips, participating in breath holding contests and looking up through chlorine filtered sunlight daydreaming. In water, we become weightless, buoyant and free both in mind and body. As a competitive swimmer and Psychologist for most of my life, these are elements I consciously integrate into my work. Using found objects, paint and photographs, I create nostalgic paintings of the past I carry with me into the present.

~ Leslie Morgan