Courtney M. Leonard Art

10/09/2026

Deeply appreciative to have “BREACH: Logbook 23 | ROOT” be a part of the history of the CATALYST public arts program Planting Fields and to have been recently featured alongside the works of artists whose practices I have respected throughout my life by Mary Gregory Observer - visit OBSERVER to read the full article

10/03/2026

Grateful for my family who help weather any storm… and the egrets who understand the protection the marsh provides from high winds so that they may rest their wings…

09/26/2026

Both artist and mother…

I am so deeply honored to live a life full of adventure with community and family holding the intention of creating work I would hope our seventh generations are proud of. Through the love and work of my mother, running non-profit Urban Indian Centers and her legacy prior, I grew up in a space of hope and activism. In Highschool, I was voted most likely to protest; which was and remains an accurate portrayal.

To be a human being… an artist… and a mother… in a space filled with power and to stay true to what you believe is worth living for is not an easy road, but I do believe in honoring all of it and continuously doing my best heart works that define the time I live in and the questions worth pursuing.

Who gets to tell our story?

Elizabeth Catlett was always an artist whose life and lived work I have been honored to know. Especially as a young student learning about art and history where so many voices remained intentionally invisible by who got to tell “truth” and document time. And so I have never found the full extent through words of how honored and meaningful it is to be able to share moments in my life with our daughter, Néepa, when we may be next to her work and give thanks to her legacy.

Last night Néepa and I were able to reminisce, looking back to ten years ago when we delivered my early BREACH works to the permanent public collection Crocker Art Museum and I introduced her to Elizabeth Catlett as we witnessed her sculptural work there and then now within the exhibition of “Eclipse of the Sun” which opened today at the Heckscher Museum of Art.

To witness “CONTACT 2,023…” alongside Howardena Pindell’s “Relationships (Kandinsky #1) [Relaciones, (Kandinski #1)]”, both works from the public collection of The Heckscher Museum of Art is a moment I will also carry with me, with deep appreciation of the research, creative work, and teaching legacy Howardena upholds and one to which I also cherish to uphold and maintain through my practice and career.

Tábūtní to the people that have supported the work of BREACH to be within public collections and with community and who continue to open doors that should never have been closed.

09/19/2026

“the convergence of lines in a distance”

What happens when we can no longer see our rising sun? Our eastern door?

This question is of concern for many Indigenous Coastal communities and was posed by the Wampanoag Aquinnah community over fifteen years ago… as off shore energy has been pushed through time without consent from the Indigenous communities to which they impact… it is also in connection to our kin… our relatives… the whales…

In what ways might you consider what you see above or below the horizon?

These considerations through layered time are a part of “BREACH: Logbook 26 | CONVERGENCE” and are currently on view through November 1, 2026

09/13/2026

BREACH: LOGBOOK 26 | CONVERGENCE
Now on view East End Seaport Museum Through November 1st

BREACH: Logbook 26 | Convergence brings the work of nationally recognized Shinnecock artist Courtney M. Leonard to the East End Seaport Museum in a major new site-specific exhibition centering Indigenous perspectives on water, place, and continuity.

Part of Leonard’s ongoing BREACH series — conceived on the model of 19th-century whaling ship logbooks, in which each installation records a year of the artist’s engagement with environmental fragility and cultural resilience — Convergence takes its name from the oceanographic phenomenon of currents meeting: a zone where distinct forces, histories, and knowledge systems flow together and transform.

For this iteration, Leonard turns her lens to the waters immediately surrounding Greenport: the Peconic River, Gardiner’s Bay, and the harbor’s own edge. New site-specific video work explores Bug Light, Greenport’s deep history as a whaling port, and the former Oki-Do Oyster Factory — threading together Indigenous relationships to these waterways with the layered industrial and ecological histories that have shaped them. Ceramic and hanging works are installed in dialogue with the museum’s rare Fresnel lens collection, bringing Leonard’s material language of shell, whale, and sea into conversation with the navigational objects that once guided vessels through these same waters.

08/30/2026

What wakes you? https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dcq7iSYysAG/?igsi=MWZyaTJzdmN4b2JpZg==

08/16/2026

https://northforker.com/2026/08/indigenous-art-meets-maritime-history-in-greenport-exhibition/

Courtney M. Leonard, a Shinnecock artist whose work explores the connections between marine life, Indigenous communities and environmental and cultural issues, has a new exhibition on display at the East End Seaport Museum & Marine Foundation (100 3rd Street, Greenport, 631-477-2100). BREACH: Logbo...

08/13/2026

“BREACH: Logbook 26 | IMPOSITION #1”
Courtney M. Leonard, 2026
Carbon Reduced Shipping Pallet w/ Coiled Ceramic Carbon Fired S***m Whale Teeth | Pallet Dimension of Approximately 3’ x 4’ x height of the pile about 3’ high (60 teeth)

The newest work in the BREACH logbooks, “IMPOSITION #1”, explores the language of “imposition”, material access, environmental sustainability, cultural viability, and the documentation of time from the past to the present and our collective carbon future.

Now on View as a part of the exhibition “Pocket Full of Shells” Center for Native Futures through January 16, 2027 and Available via Center For Native Futures.

The Center For Native Futures in Chicago is an Indigenous artist-led non-profit organization dedicated to serving as an epicenter for Native creativity. Its mission is to bring together Native artists to imagine rich futures, challenge inaccurate portrayals, nurture creators at all career stages, and showcase living Native cultures through the lens of Indigenous Futurism.

08/12/2026

How is this allowed? Please help to make it illegal. What environmental protections do our waters have? Our Shinnecock Nation citizens canoe, kayak, fish, and gather clams along Heady Creek and we have never had to worry about “Limo” service impacting the environment in the way that this does and will. An egret flew by as their props were in the air pushing them through shallow waters.

Heady Creek is a shallow tidal tributary located on the eastern end of Shinnecock Bay in Southampton, New York. Water depths throughout this area and general parts of the bay are shallow, typically measuring under 10 feet at mean low water, with much of the creek consisting of much shallower shoal, salt marsh, and mud flat areas

Southampton Town Kathy Hochul 27east News 12 Long Island please help save Heady Creek

07/25/2026

The majority of my studio practice is based in memory… based in knowing… and unknowing… based in sifting through possibilities that exist beyond me… to bear witness… to honor… to record…

“IMPOSITION #1” is a work in progress… representing both ancestor and time… extraction… and sustenance… systems of oppression and burning imposition….

Throughout the work of BREACH it has been so interesting to hear people discuss their definition of carbon footprint and action… often their actions towards reduction are also inclusive of the exclusion of local indigenous people… our knowledge and our understanding…

The works of BREACH are layered… so I offer a single word for each work… a “title” from the language of imposition that many are forced to use… with hope that those that also bear witness may be able to navigate their own decision making towards which choice if any at all may be fitting…

Within the English language “Imposition” is defined as:

the laying on of something as a burden or obligation.
something imposed, as a burden or duty;

an unusual or extraordinarily burdensome requirement or task.

the act of imposing by or as if by authority.

an instance of imposing upon a person.

the act of imposing fraudulently or deceptively on others; imposture.

the ceremonial laying on of hands, as in confirmation or ordination.

Printing. the arrangement of page plates in proper order on a press for printing a signature.

the act of putting, placing, or laying on.

(Images: In Process Images of the newest work by Artist, Courtney M. Leonard entitled “IMPOSITION #1”, 2026 | Hand Coiled and Carbon Reduced S***m Whale Teeth Fashioned From Clay Resting Upon A Carbonized Shipping Pallet | Left to right: Tyrannosaurus rex tooth, extinct s***m whale tooth and contemporary s***m whale tooth. © Ben Healley/Museum Victoria)