" I explore the human environment of art pieces, the healing energy that is hidden in the disconnect between moments of common ground and moments of abstraction. My work shares a space and energy with my body such that presenting it can feel all-consuming, such a connection makes me passionately intrigued; I can paint something which is just barely abstracted to me, but if I show it to someone else they might not see it at all, in yet, practicing art has still become how I interact with and connect energetically with other people, both physically and emotionally. This thesis work examines a way of confronting my own personal energy embodied by my work, it feels out the ways in which space both energizes and is energized by my artbody and by viewers. My art practice navigates the interactions of human perception such that I may greet a more spiritual space of interaction and of self. Raw craft materials in my work act as visceral sticking points, as common gestures of perceiving touch and smell; I value such trivial materials so that I can intentionally build up from the mutual (and seemingly mindless) human interaction with space that is embodied by such material. That mindless interaction, that unseen human energy in the space of my material, pins down the delicate frustration and ambiguous fear I see embodied in possible miscommunications of abstraction. I then put that material into a space- and time-sensitive installation, seeing human energy is a cherished system of space. My process then becomes a study and experience of the space embodied by human perception itself, a way to build material and consequently space, interaction, and self, up from that fragile disconnect and into the strong energy and light of honest connections where we may simply listen to reverence. "  (2015, Matters)

For more information or to access Leah's extensive academic writing on intentional embodiment in art and expanding space for herself and others as artists, please email lcreusch@gmail.com