Mada Leach

Mada Leach at the Festival of the Arts (Credit: the Artist)

Mada Leach has been a visual artist for 50 years, painting abstract and realistic subjects and creating monotypes with collage techniques and special Japanese papers. She successfully completed BFA and MFA degrees from Meredith College and Duke University in North Carolina and from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, Illinois.

Silver Moon (Credit: the Artist)

Mada Leach's art is based on observation and experience on location and in nature. She has even hired guides to take her to remote destinations to view the rock formations and the petroglyphs found in Southwestern Arizona. Her inspiring series, Magic Visions, Ancient Hands, exhibited at the Maturango Museum in Ridgecrest, California in 2013, is the result of these travels. Ms. Leach has created mixed media works on canvas that distill the colors, space, light and movement that she observed on site. The essence of her work is to capture the sense of adventure and harmony that she has found in the landscape, whether her result is abstract or realistic. She is a 30 year exhibitor and a life-member of the Laguna Beach Festival of the Arts. Since 1991, she has been responsible for the arts outreach workshops held on the Festival grounds. The Sandstone Gallery in Laguna Beach has exhibited and sold her artworks for many years.

Mada Leach has experimented with great success with printmaking and especially with the monotype, a one off version combining print components with collage materials. She uses unique Shibori papers together with antique silk fabrics to layer and mount on acrylic and canvas. Some of the techniques that she has incorporated in her monotypes date back to 6th century Japanese art making.

Canyon Colors #2 (Credit: the Artist)

Mada Leach is an art educator and she has dedicated herself to teaching art making to individuals of all ages in small group classes in her studio and at many arts institutions in the Laguna Beach area. In 1995 with fellow artist Anne Englund, Ms. Leach founded LOCA (Laguna Outreach Community Arts), a Laguna Beach community based artist organization dedicated to bringing art experiences to students and seniors, to locals and to tourists- at schools and community centers, at museums and at the beach. LOCA has given many local artists an avenue to express their art and a means to find an audience close to home.

Mada Leach's has had a long and fruitful art career with many collectors and gallery exhibitions. She has become a leading arts activist in the community of Laguna Beach, founding LOCA and providing other artists with opportunities to share their talents with all willing participants. LOCA artists have conducted workshops at many different venues including the Boys and Girls Club, the Suzi Q Senior Center, the Laguna Art Museum and all the Laguna Beach schools. Mada Leach was honored at the 7th annual Laguna Hero Fest, held on March 13, 2014 at [seven-degrees] in Laguna Canyon.