Artist Leslie Clark travels widely and paints constantly, searching for new perspective and old wisdom. Lured by exotic cultures around the globe, she paints with the urgency of knowing they may soon be transformed by the intrusion of the modern world.
A fourth-generation Californian, she is driven by a sense of adventure. In her 30s, Clark returned to school and obtained a Master of Fine Arts degree from George Washington University. A twelve-month sojourn in the south of France, frequenting the cafes, beaches and hill villages of the Mediterranean, provided the inspiration for her first show in Monte Carlo. Since then, travel has been the inspiration for all her work. On an overland trip to West Africa in 1993 she discovered the continent that would transform her painting and her life. Since that trip she has spent half of each year from one end of Africa to the other, dodging tribal wars and political unrest looking for nomads and painting. The Sahara desert and Niger specifically have become the focus of her work, but while at home in California, she paints the cowboy life that is a part of her heritage.
The desire to understand the lives of the nomads in the Sahara led her to develop two language dictionaries in order to communicate with them. The knowledge and insights gained have become a part of her purpose in painting–to tell their story. This was the impetus for opening her own gallery NOMAD in 1996 in Ojai, California, where her own paintings are shown alongside traditional arts of Africa.
The cultures she has visited have so enriched her life; she tries to repay some of this gift through the NOMAD Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of cultural and artistic traditions in Africa. Helping people support themselves using their traditional skills. Among its projects are women’s co-operatives, schools, a livestock purchase and health program, cereal banks for food security, drilling wells and a cultural exchange in which artists from Africa visit the US to share their traditions and collaborate with American artists.
She also acts as a guide and cultural expert to lead groups of tourists and film crews, including National Geographic. Three of these episodes aired in 2007/8 as part of the National Geogrphiic series Taboo. She appeared on the segment about the Wodaabe. As part of her desire to help employ the Africans she has come to think of as family she formed a travel company NOMAD Adventures, Inc. in partnership with African guides and leads groups to the Sahara and to the festivals of the nomads. She now has a home and studio in Agadez, Niger where she spends half of each year.
Clark is not an impartial observer. She does not visit exotic cultures to document patterns of behavior or dress, but to make a human connection and interpret this in paint. “ After years of living among these people I have come to understand a little of what they feel, their love of their environment and pride in their culture. I have come to realize that, although I was initially drawn to them by our vast differences, I continue to be drawn to them because we are very much alike.”
