CULLY + LESLIE
Craig Cully and Kelly Leslie both grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, where they were influenced early on by the region’s rich tradition of realist painting. Both earned BFAs from Temple University’s Tyler School of Art, although their artistic paths took them in opposite directions. Cully moved from design into painting, seeking greater freedom from what he perceived as the constraints of design theory. Leslie moved from painting into design, drawn to its disciplined approach to visual problem-solving. They later met in graduate school at the University of Arizona in the late 1990s, where Cully earned an MFA in Painting and Leslie an MFA 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 encompasses client commissions, drawing, and digital fabrication, with her work exhibited in China, Japan, Australia, and the United States. Her design work has also received recognition from the international publication Graphis.
After many years of marriage, attempts to collaborate creatively remained elusive. That changed in 2020, when the pandemic brought them home and fundamentally shifted their creative dynamic. Rather than trying to reconcile their different artistic temperaments, they began to embrace them, developing a shared studio practice grounded in patience, mutual respect, and what they call “corporate discernment”—a willingness to balance idealism with practicality, art with design, and the demands of a creative partnership with the realities of everyday life.
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