An ongoing photographic meditation on beauty, impermanence, and the quiet tension between wonder and loss. Inspired by Agnes Martin's observation that "Beauty is the mystery of life," Leslie Ford transforms the familiar flowers into luminous digital compositions. Ephemeral by nature, these fleeting forms against dark voids become poignant reminders of the transience of all living things, revealing how even the most ordinary subjects hold profound emotional and existential resonance.
Seasonal by Leslie Ford
OCT 13–NOV 20, 2026
Reception & Artist Talk:
Thursday, October 15 from 5:30–7:00 PM
About The Artist
Leslie Ford is an abstract painter whose practice embraces printmaking and photography. Her work is inspired by her meditations on literature; current events, music lyrics and popular culture seen through the lens of simple engagement of process. She seeks to provide clarity or identify hidden meaning between two or more conceptual ideas by combining studio practices with processes of the mind to express her metaphors of ephemeral ideas.
Artist Statement
Seasonal is an ongoing photography series of meditations on beauty and fear. “Beauty is the mystery of life” is a famous quote by Agnes Martin that inspired me to make digital images combining the most banal and commonplace subjects of flowers and snowflakes. All physical matter has a mysterious shelf life, some long, others short. Everything vanishes at some point like snow and flowers often are part of a passing of life.
Instead of arranging flowers in a vase, I take them apart and use the components to make snowflake designs. There is a reversal of spring to winter by use of these materials and concept. I’ve always been intrigued with snowflakes. Each one is a unique crystalline form, vanishes by melting and presents as pure white. Flowers also enchant me with their formal structures, short lives and amazing assortment of colors. White is the combination of all colors while black is the absence of color. By using my scanner as a camera, I capture extraordinary detail and rich color that leaps out in contrast to the black background. Making these works is labor intensive and profoundly meditative. I try to make pictures that capture the spirit of both subjects, embracing elements of design and intention. The final images are a celebration of brief lives incorporating complete beauty.
I’ve been making photographs since my childhood having grown up in a home with a darkroom. The slow roll of the scanner revealing an image composed on the glass is reminiscent of how an image would appear to float to the surface in a developing tray. In later years when the family darkroom vanished in a flood holding decades of memory and experiences in addition to physical equipment I feared I would never have another way to create slow process in a fast digital world. Fear and beauty come in many guises both inevitable in anyone’s life.