Leslie Awender (Ah’ vender) is a Los Angeles-based visual artist who employs a variety of image-making equipment and techniques, ranging from photographs and photograms to tintypes and Polaroids.
After receiving her Bachelor of Arts from Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, she spent a year in Namibia photographing the physical and cultural landscape of Southern Africa and teaching ESL. Upon returning to the US, she began her creative studies at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She received a Professional Certificate in Photography from the Maine Media Workshops and then relocated to California, where she earned a Master of Fine Arts from Mills College in Oakland.
She was awarded an Artist Fellowship at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, where she produced the critically acclaimed series Virginia Red Earth. Her work has been published in The Photo Review, and photographs from her Chinese Lantern series have been chosen as an Official Selection at the International Photography Awards.
Past shows include Photo LA XX; Medienkunstmesse (Media Art Fair) and Contemporary Art Ruhr in Essen, Germany; Image/Project, the Arlington Art Center’s National Photo and Video Show; and the all-sculpture show Hanging Gardens, where she exhibited her living sculpture, Two and a half, four and a half, six and a half.
Awender’s book Variations on Mira is in the Museum of Modern Art/Franklin Furnace Artist Book Collection. Her works are included in numerous private collections throughout the United States.
Tidepool Triptych, 2004.