leslie koptcho

ARTIST BIO

Leslie Koptcho studied art at Tyler School of Art, Temple University, and at Cranbrook Academy of Art, where she earned her MFA. Currently, she is a Professor of Art at Louisiana State University, where she teaches Printmaking, Papermaking and the Arts-of-the-Book. During her tenure at LSU, she was named the LSU School of Art Emogene Pliner Distinguished Professor, which is awarded to acknowledge sustained creative accomplishments, scholarship, and research.

Koptcho's artwork is included in over 40 permanent collections including Bibliotheque National de France, Department of Prints & Photographs, Paris, FRANCE; Brooklyn Museum; Fogg Art Museum; Library of Congress, Artists' Books Collection; Marion Koogler McNay Museum; Mino Washi Museum, Director’s Collection, Mino, JAPAN; New Orleans Museum of Art; The New York Public Library, Spencer Collection; Printmaking Museum of Duoro, Alijo, PORTUGAL; Queensland University of Technology Art Museum, Brisbane, AUSTRALIA; and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco/Legion of Honor Museum, The Reva and David Logan Collection of Illustrated Books.

Her work has been shown nationally and internationally in over 250 venues, 14 of which were solo exhibitions. Botanica Collectanea, her current body of work was most recently presented in 2026 at the Santa Reparata International School of Art Gallery in Florence, Italy.

Koptcho's professional activities have taken her to Egypt, France, India, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Russia, and Spain. Notable awards include a Yaddo Fellowship; an American Cultural Specialist Grant, which was funded and administered by the US Information Agency; and 2 ATLAS awards, which were sponsored the Board of Regents of the State of Louisiana.

Koptcho was twice selected to participate as an artist in residence at Art Print Residence in Arenys de Munt, Spain; and at the Museu Molí Paperer de Capellades; the latter was sponsored by the Generalitat de Catalunya, Spain.

In the summer of 2025, she was a Resident Fellow at the American College of the Mediterranean in Aix-en-Provence, France.

Artist Member since 2019

Master of FINE Art, CRANBROOK ACADEMY OF ART

Bachelor of Fine Art, TEMPLE UNIVERSITY, TYLER SCHOOL OF ART

CURRENT EXHIBITION

OCTOBER 2-25

BUOYANCY

ARTIST STATEMENT

Buoyancy, the principle first described by Greek scientist Archimedes in his work On Floating Bodies (written in the 3rd century BCE) is the upward force that a fluid exerts on an object placed in it, which allows the object to float or rise.

It is, fundamentally, about the capacity to float, adapt, and endure. Working with Louisiana’s invasive and non-native plants, I am struck by both their ecological threat and their undeniable beauty, resilience, and tenacity. Displaced through human migration and commerce, these plants have quite literally learned to keep their heads above water.

Buoyancy engages invasive flora as both artistic subject and raw material. Drawing on my background in printmaking and book arts, I harvest these plants to create distinctive, handmade sheets of paper—transforming ecological disruptors into tactile surfaces for visual storytelling.

While all the works in this exhibition are inspired by botanical sources, historic herbals, and invasive plants specific to the Gulf Coast region, I haven’t had to look much beyond­ my own backyard and the fragile Bayou Duplantier to find “migrants” such as Asian jasmine, paper mulberry, Japanese climbing fern, Chinese tallow, and others. Aquatic, non-natives such as giant salvinia, alligator weed, and water lettuce can be found throughout the state. Most of us are familiar with the lovely water hyacinth that has choked the LSU Lakes to a critical point of expensive remediation.

In studying water lettuce (Pistia stratiotes), I have become fascinated by its anatomical adaptations: microscopic, air-trapping leaf hairs and spongy, air-filled chambers that keep the plant effortlessly aloft, allowing it to blanket entire waterways and outcompete native life.

Invasive species present one of the most critical threats to native wildlife and local biodiversity. Yet, confronting these plants also unearths intricate ethical questions regarding migration, belonging, and environmental stewardship. Many of the prints in this exhibition are part of my ongoing portfolio, Botanica Collectanea, which reimagines the botanical print tradition through a contemporary lens, pairing aesthetic observation with environmental urgency.

CURRENT WORKS

previous Exhibition

Previous Exhibitions