Bio

LéAna Clifton (b. 1971, Pretoria, South Africa) is a multimedia artist whose work distills the elemental forces of light, form, color, movement and time. 

Her recent work focuses almost exclusively on creating abstract images of freight trains running through the far west Texas desert in Marfa, capturing their visceral drama. Drawn to movement—trains, shifting light, passing forms—she rejects the tradition of photography as a fixed instant, instead using long exposures and in-camera techniques to “paint” with light and motion. The ethereal quality of these works results from experimental processes that push the medium toward abstraction, creating images that reverberate with physicality, immediacy, and a deep sense of time and place.

Throughout her practice, Clifton recontextualizes overlooked and utilitarian subjects, using what she calls “visual sampling” of industrial and commercial forms as source material for transformation. In the darkroom and studio, she has pushed her work beyond the single frame, from shredding, deconstructing, and reconstructing photographic prints in her earlier series to more recently incorporating drawing and painting directly onto large-scale photographic works. These interventions emphasize the artist’s hand and expand photography into mixed media terrain.

Clifton was born in South Africa, where she was first exposed to photography at a young age by her father, an avid photographer. She emigrated to the United States in 1994, where she honed her craft as a professional photographer in Austin, Texas. She moved to Marfa, Texas, in 2007, where she has been pushing the boundaries of the medium throughout various bodies of work over the years. 

She lives and works in Marfa, Texas.

Select Exhibitions

2020-2025 Resident artist, Veldt Gallery, Marfa, TX
2019 1-in-8, solo exhibition, Veldt Gallery, Marfa, TX
2019 Frequency, solo exhibition, Veldt Gallery, Marfa, TX
2019 Group exhibition, Marfa Studio of Arts, Marfa, TX
2018 Group exhibition, Marfa Studio of Arts, Marfa, TX
2017 Marfa Train, solo exhibition and book launch, Marfa Book Co. Art Gallery, Marfa, TX
2017 Cloud Train, solo exhibition, Roasters Gallery, Marfa, TX
2017 Red, Hot and Fast, solo exhibition, Roasters Gallery, Marfa, TX
2016 Marfa Blues, solo exhibition, Roasters Gallery, Marfa, TX
2013 Spliced 3, group exhibition, Stuff Gallery, Marfa, TX
2011 Boats Out of Water, group exhibition, Photographers Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2010 Spliced 2, group exhibition, Details Gallery, Austin, TX
2009 Spliced Marfa, solo exhibition, Gallery 111, Marfa, TX
2008 Disappearing Marfa, Gallery 111, Marfa, TX