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Leighton uses yarn and cotton fabric paired with a contraption called a "tufting gun" to create large-scale soft paintings. The space dividing painters from fiber artists is not as vast as we tend to think. One of the strengths of her work is that it hovers between painting and sculpture, yet it refuses to fit neatly into a category. This body of work is about unleashing momentum and energy through mark making and color; a formal investigation into how we see and communicate emotion through vision and imagination.

 

Leighton graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art summa cum laude in May 2015. Post graduation, she was accepted into the Green Olive Arts Residency and spent a month painting among the medinas of Morocco. Most recently Leighton’s work was featured in the publication New American Paintings. While in graduate school at the University of New Mexico, Leighton has been awarded the New Mexico Women in the Arts Scholarship and has been nominated as a SITE Santa Fe Scholar. She is thrilled to be in school at the University of New Mexico and looks forward to graduating from her MFA this month.