Leigh Craven is an artist and educator who earned a B.F.A. in Printmaking from the College of Architecture, Art and Planning at Cornell University. She then went on to receive her M.F.A. in Printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design. She also trained in German bookbinding techniques with Peter Verheyen. Immediately following this Leigh immersed herself in her artwork, participating in multiple artist residencies, including the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Centrum, Hambidge Center for Arts and Sciences, and the International Residencies Program in Csopak, Hungary.
Leigh has exhibited extensively; she has been included in numerous national exhibitions and has also had work exhibited in France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Mexico, Spain, Slovak Republic, and the United Kingdom. Initially, Leigh’s artworks were predominately on paper and in most recent years she has evolved to work primarily in sculpture. Leigh has been a featured artist at the Bristol Art Museum multiple times, including an exhibition supported by the Rhode Island Council for the Arts with funding from the National Endowment of the Arts and again in Contemporary Women. She was also a Kalos Foundation Visual Art Prize Finalist and Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship Finalist. Currently, Leigh is a Professor of Printmaking and Book Arts at Bridgewater State University.
Visit Leigh Craven’s website and Instagram page.
Featured work
Selected works, 2021-2024
My ceramic sculptures merge the human figure with elements of flora and fauna as I explore the dissolving boundaries between life and death. Built through slip-casting and altered by hand, the figures become bodies that vanish into landscapes with nature overtaking the human form. Layers of colored slips, glazes, and mixed materials obscure and reveal the figure, blurring distinctions between the physical and the metaphysical. By combining beauty and fragility, the work invites contemplation of transformation, loss, and the interconnections of living things.
