North Carolina Artist Leigh Suggs

I met Leigh Suggs at the Penland School in 2009, when we worked together during my 2-1/2 week Paper in Three Dimensions class. As students began delving into their own projects, I recall Leigh casting wet sheets of abaca paper over fence post caps she got at the hardware store. She made at least 100 hollow hemispheres, which she attached to a cast paper balloon. And the result was stunning.

Leigh lives and works in Carrboro, North Carolina, and her work involves the repetition of shapes and lines. She focuses on a single gesture, whether it is cutting, stitching, or marking. As her rhythmic and laborious gestures accumulate, pattern-making begins.

Leigh recalls the “patterns and shapes she saw behind her eyelids as a child. The circle (or dot) has countless meanings, but for me it represents the infinite, the never-ending shape or object. Its start never ends”. Watch this video by Ippy Patterson to get a glimpse behind Leigh’s eyelids as dots and circles move across the screen.

Leigh is a recipient of the prestigious 2012–2013 North Carolina Arts Council Artist Fellowship Award. Congratulations, Leigh!

And her solo show, Red, White, Black and Blue opens Friday at Light Art & Design in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.