Margaret
LeJeune

2016 Caucus Application Portfolio

The series Just Below The Surface marries conceptual and formal investigations through the technique of photographic collage to explore environmental issues and ideas of ephemerality.

The Female Mariners Project questions our assumptions about gender bias and class structure through depictions of seafaring women at work and leisure. These images are intentionally contrary to the litany of history paintings that were commissioned to document traditional masculine maritime objectives, such as land discovery and domination of foreign lands/peoples.

Funded in part by an artist grant from the Puffin Foundation, I have traveled along the Eastern Seaboard, from Florida to Maryland, creating images that challenge the antiquated tropes of sirens; beautiful women who lure men to watery deaths with their enchanting music; and mermaids; the half-human, half-fish harbingers of storms, or as in the Disney rendition, as mute and vulnerable young ladies. The strong, knowledgeable, and brave women depicted in The Female Mariners Project