Searching - Leigh Witherell

Leigh Witherell (b. 1969; Denver City, Texas, US) Photographer and painter Leigh Witherell lives and works in Brevard County Florida, not far from Orlando and Cape Canaveral. Although Leigh’s education in the arts did not begin until her college years, she began to immerse herself in the fantasy world of literature as a child. Her escape into a wide variety of literary works that included the worlds of King Arthur, Beowulf, and others helped fuel the imaginings of a child and led to a love of creating. The combination of those interests later led her to obtain a BA in English with a minor in Fine Arts and eventually a Master’s in Literature from the Wright State University in Fairborn, Ohio. In 2018, Leigh and her husband relocated to Florida where they found the perfect home with a studio for her creative work. Her understanding of art-making as a powerful therapeutic tool informs her artistic practice. She specializes in abstract and fluid art, as these techniques allow her visions to transform themselves through interaction and reaction. For Leigh, this process mirrors grief, a central experience in her life following the loss of her daughter Amanda in a tragic automobile accident in April 2021. Shortly before Amanda’s death she had encouraged Leigh to launch her career as an artist and had identified fluid art as a mother-daughter project that would serve those purposes. Leigh creates it in observance of her daughter’s wishes and memory while also seeking to spark conversations that acknowledge the isolating process grieving parents must go through and how art is a powerful tool to reframe pain.