Leslie Koptcho
Leslie Koptcho studied art at Tyler School of Art, Temple University, and at Cranbrook Academy of Art, where she earned her MFA .
Her body of work comprises prints, drawings, paintings, photographs, and book arts. Her prints, which predominate, range from richly textured, large-scale intaglios to those employing digital technology and microscopy in combination with traditional printmaking processes.
Koptcho's artwork is included in 35 permanent collections worldwide, and has been shown nationally and internationally in numerous exhibitions. Currently, her work is on view through October 23, 2016 in A Gift of Artists' Books from the Reva and David Logan Foundation at FAMSF's Legion of Honor; and in The River: Memory and Metaphor on the Mississippi at Minnesota Center for Book Arts, Minneapolis, MN
Her solo exhibition, Leslie Koptcho: Grafic Work was presented May 5 - 27, 2016 at the Escola Superior de Disseny i Art Llotja in Barcelona, Spain. Recent invitationals include; Imprint One 2016, presented at VAM Gallery, Austin, TX, in conjunction with PrintAustin; and the Seventh International Print Art Triennial, presented November 2014 through January 2015 in Sofia, Bulgaria, and in Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria.
Koptcho's professional activities have taken her to Egypt, France, Kazakhstan, Mexico, India, Japan, Russia, Spain, and Italy, where she teaches a summer study abroad program in Florence. During April and May of 2016, she was an Artist-in-Residence at both Art Print Residence in Arenys de Munt, Spain; and at the Museu Molí Paperer de Capellades, in Capellades, Spain.
Her home base is Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where she lives with her husband and three cats, and teaches the Arts-of-the-Book, Papermaking and Printmaking at Louisiana State University.
Artist's Statement.
"Printmaking processes mirror life processes, comprising layers of complex, diverse, and not infrequently, conflicting elements."
My current work focuses on skin as a metaphor for identity, and the fragile boundary that separates the outer world of appearance from the interior one of private and psychic complexity. I am inspired to overlay and compare the skins of living organisms, working much like a comparative biologist, only visually. By examining, replicating, adapting, and combining these elements, I create the visual polemics that are central to my work.
Microscopy, including traditional light, scanning electron, and transmission electron, enables me to examine and capture a variety of images–normally unseen–whose subjects range from sunflower pollen to the molecular structure of my own skin. Through digital means, I manipulate and merge these images with those of traditional drawing and printmaking processes.
While printmaking is frequently identified as a medium of duplication and multiples, a more considered appraisal challenges this notion. Oftentimes, I work in series to examine and explore the qualities that define individuality. The impressions I create are akin to one another, like members of a family, related but not identical.