Faculty

Leslie Koptcho

Professor

225-578-5690| B26 Hatcher Hall
lkoptcho@lsu.edu

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Leslie Koptcho's prints and bookworks are included in 35 permanent collections worldwide, including Australia, France, Japan, Portugal, Russia, and the United States.Highlights include Bibliotheque National de France's Department of Prints and Photographs, Queensland University of Technology Art Museum, Harvard's Fogg Art Museum, New York Public Library, Brooklyn Museum, and Nelson Atkins Museum.

Koptcho has exhibited in more than 200 venues, including theSeoul Space International Print Biennialat the Seoul Art Museum in Korea (Selected Works Award);Between Nature and Culture, in Finland, the Czech Republic, and the United States!the5th International Printmaking Biennial of Douroin Portugal!and the2nd Panang International Printmaking Exhibitionin Malaysia.Her prints were also included inMATRIX: Contemporary Printsat the Museum of Fine Arts at Florida State University.Most recently, she exhibited her work inPrints Tokyo 2012and at the LSU Museum of Art in 2013.Solo exhibitions include the JARFO Gallery in Kyoto, Japan, and the Joan Grona Gallery in San Antonio, Texas.

Special honors and awards include a Yaddo Fellowship and an American Cultural Specialist Designation, sponsored jointly by the US Information Agency in Bombay and Baroda University and the National Institute of Design in India.Koptcho was selected to serve as an international juror at the 2nd International Conference of Plastic Arts, which was held at Assiut University in Egypt.She is also the beneficiary of a Louisiana Board of Regents ATLAS Grant, which supported travel and research in Japan.

Koptcho has published several articles inContemporary ImpressionsandGraphic Impressionsand has served on the Board of Directors for both the Southern Graphics Council and American Print Alliance.She also directs the Printmaking in Florence summer intersession program through LSU.

Artist's Statement

My current work focuses on skin as a metaphor for identity and the fragile boundary that separates the outer world of appearance from the interior one of private and psychic complexity.I am compelled to overlay and compare the skins of living organisms, working much like a comparative biologist, only visually.

Printmaking processes mirror life processes, comprising layers of complex, diverse, and not infrequently, conflicting elements.Examining, replicating, adapting, and combining these elements creates a visual polemic, which is central to my work.

I use microscopes such as traditional light, scanning electron (SEM), and transmission electron (TEM) to examine and capture a variety of normally hidden images, from sunflower pollen to the molecular structure of my own skin.Through digital means, I manipulate and merge these images with those of traditional drawing and printmaking processes.

While printmaking is frequently identified as a medium of duplication and multiples, a more considered appraisal challenges this notion.I work in series to examine and explore the qualities that define individuality.The impressions I create are akin to one another, like members of a family, related but not identical.

Courses

ART 1360 Introduction to Printmaking
ART 2360 Intermediate Printmaking
ART 2361 Honors Intermediate Printmaking
ART 2342 Papermaking
ART 2381 Introduction to Book Arts
ART 4300 Senior Project in Printmaking
ART 4341 Advanced Papermaking
ART 4381 Advanced Book Arts
ART 4366 Special Studies in Printmaking
ART 7300 Graduate Printmaking
ART 8000 Thesis Research

Portfolio