Courtney M. Leonard is a Shinnecock artist and filmmaker, whose work explores marine biology, Indigenous food sovereignty, migration, and human environmental impact. Leonard’s current projects articulate the multiple definitions of the term breach and investigate and document Indigenous communities’ historical ties to water, marine life, and native cultures of subsistence.
In collaboration with national and international museums, embassies, cultural institutions, and local Indigenous communities in North America, New Zealand, and Nova Scotia, Leonard’s practice centers narratives of cultural viability and the relationship between Indigenous people and the environmental record.
Leonard’s work is in the permanent collections of the United States Art in Embassies, the Crocker Art Museum, the Heard Museum, the ASU Art Museum and Ceramic Research Center, the Peabody Essex Museum, the Newark Museum, the Weisman Art Museum, the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of the North, the Mystic Seaport Museum, the Pomona Museum of Art, the Hood Museum of Art, the Denver Art Museum, the Autry Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Leonard has been the recipient of numerous awards, fellowships, and residencies that include The Andy Warhol Foundation, The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, The Rasumon Foundation, The United States Art In Embassies Program, and The Native Arts and Culture Foundation.