ABOUT US
Craig Cully and Kelly Leslie both grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, inspired early by the region’s rich tradition of realist painting. Each earned a BFA from Temple University’s Tyler School of Art, though they took inverse paths: Cully moved from design to painting, seeking freedom from the perceived constraints of design theory, while Leslie shifted from painting to design, drawn to the discipline’s focused visual problem-solving. They later met in graduate school at the University of Arizona in the late 1990s, where both earned MFAs, Cully in painting and Leslie in Visual Communication.
​
Cully’s paintings have been exhibited nationally and internationally and are held in permanent collections including the Boise Museum of Art, the Tucson Museum of Art, and the University of Arizona Museum of Art. Leslie’s creative practice spans client commissions, drawing, and digital fabrication, with exhibitions in China, Japan, Australia, and the United States. Her design work has received recognition from the international publication Graphis.
​
For many years of marriage, collaborative attempts proved elusive. That changed in 2020, when the pandemic confined them to their home and shifted their creative dynamic. Embracing rather than resisting their different artistic temperaments, they developed a shared studio approach rooted in patience, mutual respect, and what they describe as “corporate discernment,” balancing idealism with practicality, art with design, and the complexities of partnership with everyday responsibility.