Originally from Redwood
Falls, Minnesota, Leah Bestmann earned
her Bachelor of Arts degree in 2001 from Augustana College in Sioux Falls,
South Dakota. Two years after graduating, she moved to Manhattan, Kansas
to attend Kansas State University. In 2006, Leah graduated with a Master
of Arts degree in painting. She currently resides in the Bronx of New
York City where she continues to create art.
"The mediums I use range
from watercolor, gouache, acrylic and oil paints, to printmaking and
collage. Throughout all these processes, I create invented environments
that evolve through a mostly intuitive search, a slow materialization of
marks through a repeated additive/subtractive process. Influenced by
authors such as Frank Herbert and C. S. Lewis, my work is driven by a
desire to explore and discover. My images become a point of beginning, a
passageway from reality to fiction in which I create my own explorations
and discoveries. A driving force in my life and behind my work, is a
quote by T. S. Elliot from the “Little Gidding,” (No. 4 of Four
Quartets):
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
