Leigh Werrell
Nursery, Oil On Panel, 24" x 24"
Gross McCleaf Gallery is pleased to present For the Moment, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Leigh Werrell. Werrell’s newest works reflect her long-held fascination with the potent realm between clarity and uncertainty, exploring thresholds of domestic intimacy and public space, continuity and change, presence and disappearance. Scenes unfold through layered observation, imagination, and improvisation, at times anchored by a reference snapshot or conjured from memory and reenactment. Through these paintings, Werrell balances tonal depth and color with quiet narrative suggestion, offering moments that feel both personal in scope and widely resonant, suspended ‘for the moment’.
Werrell’s practice begins in the rhythms of daily life: a fleeting glow through window blinds, the gleam of liquid in a glass, or the dark mass of a family table. “Mystery is always more compelling than resolution,” she reflects. “Ambiguity gives the viewer an opportunity to immerse themselves in the color, light, and texture of a painting and discover hints of narrative with which to create their own story.” Each painting emerges as a meditation on atmosphere and transition, where light and shadow register the lingering presence of what has been and the anticipation of what is to come.
Night Nursing Study, Graphite On Paper, 7" x 7"
Motherhood, family life, and the solitude of night emerge as recurring themes. In works such as Nursery and Night Nursing, Werrell draws from the haze of new parenthood—tender, tired, joyful moments captured in luminous lavender and blue. Night Nursing, viewed from above, situates the artist with her infant alongside her sleeping partner, balancing intimacy with distance to convey both the weight and devotion of care.
“Even with a wonderful partner, caring for an infant is an overwhelmingly isolating and exhausting task,” Werrell notes. “Still, there is so much love and devotion in the act of caring for our baby,”.
Other paintings expand outward into barrooms, city streets, and window-lit interiors, where ambiguity and recognition meet. In works such as Crepe Cart and Ortleib’s, reflective surfaces and carefully tuned contrasts establish an atmosphere that is both luminous and enigmatic. Balancing color and tone is central to Werrell’s process, often turning to the neutrality of grey to anchor her compositions...Light, too, often functions as a subject, whether pressing against the darkness in Street Lamp and Little Window or shifting mood across the surface of Fizz.
“My husband is a bass guitar player and I think using grey is similar to including that instrument in a band: most people tend to pay more attention to the lead guitarist or singer, but the bass is always there in the background keeping the rhythm and enhancing the other parts to allow them to stand out in the best way possible.”
Fizz, Oil On Panel, 12" x 12"
Together, the paintings in For the Moment mark a threshold in Werrell’s practice, balancing her roles as painter and new mother while remaining true to her longstanding interest in color-driven, open-ended narratives and spaces.
“As these details come forward, the painting leads me to find a new atmosphere, mood, or emotion,” she says, “a process that I hope is shared as the viewer finds their way through the work.”
Leigh Werrell is an artist living and working in Philadelphia. Recently the subjects of her paintings include her experiences as mother to a one-year-old, views of her Mount Airy neighborhood, everyday scenes with her family, and views of and through the windows of her home.
She is originally from Durham, NC and came to Philadelphia for an MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
