Leslie Erganian

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Leslie Jeanne Erganian, (born in Oak Park, Illinois) is an American artist, television correspondent, and arts education advocate. Her multi-disciplinary work is influenced by the Surrealists and often incorporates found objects and photographic images into collage and assemblage constructions and installations. The elements of waking dreams comprise the major themes of her work which include menace and loss, nature and myth, identity and discovery revealed in multiple layers.

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[edit] Biography

She began her university studies as a pre-med biology student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She shifted her focus to art and her geography to California during her sophomore year and began studies in photography under Joe Deal while he was working on his series "The Fault Zone", and art history under Dr. Richard Carrot receiving her BA with a double major in art history and fine art. She then returned to The University of Illinois for graduate studies in fine arts studying under Jerry Savage and Barbara DeGenevieve. She received an MFA in fine arts and shortly thereafter found representation by the Phyllis Needleman Gallery in Chicago. It is here that she participated in her first group show exhibiting a series of hand painted photographic self-portraits exploring female fairy tale mythology.

Leslie returned to California to obtain an MFA from the UCLA Film School where she attended on a Graduate Fellowship. She went on to contribute to the production of numerous film and television projects for Warner Bros., MGM, Dreamworks, NBC, MTV and PBS as art director, set decorator, and prop designer.

In 1999, she made her first television appearance sharing her creative expertise as a guest on Discovery Channel’s The Christopher Lowell Show. This appearance led to numerous appearances on the Emmy winning series as well as a special guest appearance on NBC’s The Rosie O’Donnell Show. In 2002 she became a regular contributor to the Hallmark Channel appearing on their weekday morning show in over 30 episodes over 5 seasons.

In 1996 under the label Lost Continents, she began to create functional art and interiors for private and business clients including Laura Dern and Alexander Payne for recipients including Melissa Etheridge, Francis Coppola and Sean Penn. Her work has been carried in stores throughout Los Angeles and San Francisco. In 2008, she established Leslieness [1], the synergistic brand for all her endeavors. The mission of Leslieness is to increase art access, provoke art expression, and protect artists rights.

She has been a lecturer at the University of Illinois and at UCLA teaching classes in photography and in film design. She has earned two awards for outstanding teaching. She is deeply engaged in arts education advocacy lending her efforts to advance visual literacy skills throughout the state of California.

Leslie is a lifetime member of The Society of Architectural Historians Southern California Chapter alongside her fiancé, architect and author Wolfgang Wagener, AIA, RIBA. She contributed a chapter to his architectural monograph Raphael Soriano published by Phaidon Press [2].

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ leslieness.com
  2. ^ Wagener, Wolfgang. "Raphael Soriano". 2002. pp. 198-205.
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