Article By: Zak Lodhi
“I do not force the image. I discover it.”
For Leigh Mortensen, a painting rarely begins with a plan. Instead, it begins with chaos. She splashes paint freely across the surface, pouring it, wiping it, sometimes dripping it. And then, she begins to wash it away. What’s left behind, the stains, textures, and fragments that were there, those are the fundamental beginnings of the painting. The process is messy, unpredictable, and deliberately uncontrolled. And that becomes the foundation for the work. From that moment forward, Mortensen shifts from creator to observer.
Within the layered marks, accidental shapes begin to emerge, suggestions of figures, gestures, and motion hidden inside the paint. Rather than forcing an image onto the canvas, she works to reveal what is already there.
This philosophy defines Mortensen’s practice. According to Leigh, chance is not something to correct or refine away; it is a collaborator. The splashes, drips, and stains become clues pointing toward something unexpected. What might appear chaotic at first slowly resolves into expressive forms as she works with the textures and shapes that surface naturally. The result is a body of work that comes to life with spontaneity. Each painting carries the energy of its creation, raw, tactile, and layered with movement. Texture and color play a central role in the visual language of Mortensen’s paintings. Acrylic paint allows her to build surfaces that feel alive, with layers interacting through washes, stains, and bold pigment applications. These surfaces encourage viewers to spend time with the work, discovering subtle figures and shifting interpretations that might not be immediately obvious.
Her paintings often suggest the human form, but rarely in a literal or rigid way. Instead, bodies and gestures appear as part of the composition’s natural rhythm, emerging from abstraction rather than standing apart from it. This approach gives the work an organic quality, as if the figures were always present within the paint, waiting to be uncovered.
Because her process is rooted in spontaneity, repetition is impossible. Every painting develops differently, shaped by the unique interplay of motion, water, pigment, and time. No two works can ever truly be replicated. Mortensen embraces that unpredictability. In fact, it is one of the guiding principles behind her work. The imperfections, irregularities, and unfinished edges of a painting are not problems to solve; they are evidence of the creative process itself. They are, in many ways, the most honest part of the work.
Her artistic journey began online, where she first shared her paintings through platforms such as DeviantArt and ArtPal. Early encouragement from viewers helped affirm her instincts and pushed her to continue exploring this spontaneous approach to painting. Over time, she
began responding to calls for artists both locally and nationally, gradually expanding her audience and participating in exhibitions beyond the digital world.
One such exhibition was the international online showcase NUDUS – 2024, which focused on artistic interpretations of the human form. Mortensen’s inclusion among artists from around the globe reflected the natural connection between her work and the exhibition’s theme: the exploration of vulnerability, emotion, and the expressive power of the human body. Yet even within that context, Mortensen’s approach remains uniquely her own. Her figures are rarely posed or controlled. They appear almost as if they have been uncovered rather than constructed.
That sense of discovery continues to guide her work today. Each painting begins with uncertainty, with splashed pigment and unpredictable movement across the canvas. From that chaos, Mortensen slowly uncovers something that feels inevitable, forms that emerge naturally from the marks themselves. It is a process built on trust: trust in the materials, trust in intuition, and trust in the idea that meaning often reveals itself only after the mess has settled. For Leigh Mortensen, chaos is not the opposite of control. It is the beginning of possibility.
IG: @leighamort71
