“Being Held”
Leslie Schoen
Layered photographs, cold wax painting, and digital painting techniques
Artist’s Statement
This image is from my Image Work series, where I create a series of images for someone to aid in processing their emotional experience. In this example, the prompt was: “I am holding my loneliness, and she is a teenage girl with puffy eyes, and I love her more than I have ever loved anyone.”
About the Artist
Leslie Schoen is a central Wisconsin photographer and artist with a background as a marriage and family therapist. Leslie’s creative process is a dialogue between artist and viewer, where emotions are absorbed and translated into images. Through abstraction, diffusion, and layered techniques, she creates compassionate, story-driven imagery that explores truth, perception, and human connection, inviting viewers into a shared space of reflection, vulnerability, and strength.