Leslie Fenton


Leslie Fenton during her exhibition at Cerulean Arts

The work in this show mines properties of limited materials—paper, pigment, and blade--to engage striking internalized imagery, gathered mostly during time spent around rocks by water. I’ve generated paper matter for constructing images with opposed pairings: disjointed and connected, weathered and freshened, torn and whole, tattered and new, suppressed and exuberant—all abundant in Maine coastal waters and at pond edges and stream banks in local Pennsylvania woods and arboreta.

A matrix of invented marks, impressed or carved into pigmented cotton linter, becomes the ground for a studio exploration, different from but equivalent to one in the wilder world. Paper scorings and striations mimic rock face and sea wrack, cuspid and broken forms recall crustacean exoskeletons, and concentric circles suggest time-lapse star tracks, tree cross-sections, and pond disturbances. Shallow 3D layerings convey the compression of time, and carved-and-peeled pigment layers reveal a suppressed light in atmospheres tending toward night, dusk, and winter overcast.

Waiting for each of these pieces to coalesce into an image, built on selected motifs, recapitulates the experience of waiting for a chosen place to reveal its essence.

Leslie Fenton Resume 
Leslie Fenton 2020 video by John Thornton 

Leslie Fenton's most recent solo exhibition was held February 12 - March 15, 2023.  Cerulean Arts Virtual Tour & Talk - March 1, 2023 


Source Materials, carved, layered paper & acrylic, 30" x 22"  Available 


Exuberant Life, carved, layered paper & acrylic, 30" x 22"  Available


Wetland in the Half-Light, carved, layered paper & acrylic, 30" x 22"  Available


The Living Wood, carved, layered paper & acrylic, 30" x 22"  Available


Winter Matrix, carved, layered paper & acrylic, 30" x 22"  Available


Epochal Sea, carved, layered paper & acrylic, 22" x 30"  Available


A Crumbling, carved, layered paper & acrylic, 8" x 8"  SOLD 


From the Weeds, carved, layered paper & acrylic, 8" x 8"  SOLD 


Night Bathing, carved, layered paper & acrylic, 8" x 8"  SOLD 


Sky Fragment, carved, layered paper & acrylic, 8" x 8"  SOLD 


Tidewrack, carved, layered paper & acrylic, 8" x 8"  SOLD 


In the Narrows, carved, layered paper & acrylic, 8" x 8"  Available


Sense of Sand, layered paper & acrylic, 15" x 11"  SOLD 


Last Seconds of a Shell, layered paper & acrylic, 15" x 11"  Available

The following is a selection of work from Leslie Fenton's previous solo exhibition September 15 - October 10, 2021 


Dark Matter, abraded and layered paper, acrylic, ink, 15" x 11"  Available 


Stone Blooms, abraded and layered paper, acrylic, ink, 8" x 8"  Available 


Dry Bed, abraded and layered paper, acrylic, 8" x 8"  SOLD 


Sea Wall, abraded and layered paper, acrylic, 8" x 8"  Available 


Collection, abraded and layered paper, acrylic, 8" x 8"  SOLD 

Salvage, abraded paper and acrylic, 22" x 16"  SOLD 


Focal Rocks, acrylic and abraded paper, 10" x 10"  SOLD