FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 2026

Marfa Daydream: A new solo exhibition by LéAna Clifton exploring light, motion and the poetics of the high desert at Veldt Gallery

LéAna Clifton, Untitled (triptych) 2026, paint, pencil, pastel, burnishing, mixed media over photography on paper, 20″x20″ (each)

Marfa, TX – Veldt Gallery presents Marfa Daydream, a new solo exhibition of mixed media works by artist LéAna Clifton exploring light, motion and the poetics of the high desert. The exhibition is on view May 15 – September 6, 2026. with an opening reception May 15th, 5pm. 

Marfa Daydream features new works that highlight Clifton’s ongoing explorations of light, form, and color. These abstract compositions combine materials such as paint, pencil, pastel, and burnishing over photography on paper, generating a heightened physicality that blurs the boundary between image and object. 

Rooted in the stark landscape of far West Texas, the exhibition draws from Clifton’s sustained engagement with her environment and freight trains moving through the high desert in Marfa, which originated as a water stop and important rail station in the late 19th century. Clifton transforms industrial subjects into luminous, immersive fields of motion and atmosphere. Through layering, long exposure, and hand intervention, Clifton creates images that feel both fleeting and materially grounded, evoking the rhythm of passage and the elasticity of time.

Exhibition Details

Marfa Daydream
On View: May 15 – September 6, 2026
Opening Reception: May 15th

Veldt Gallery
125 North Highland Avenue
Marfa, TX 79843-0012

About LéAna Clifton

LéAna Clifton (b. 1971, Pretoria, South Africa) is a multimedia artist whose work distills the elemental forces of light, form, color, movement and time. 

Her recent work focuses almost exclusively on creating abstract images of freight trains running through the far west Texas desert in Marfa, capturing their visceral drama. Drawn to movement—trains, shifting light, passing forms—she rejects the tradition of photography as a fixed instant, instead using long exposures and in-camera techniques to “paint” with light and motion. The ethereal quality of these works results from experimental processes that push the medium toward abstraction, creating images that reverberate with physicality, immediacy, and a deep sense of time and place.

Throughout her practice, Clifton recontextualizes overlooked and utilitarian subjects, using what she calls “visual sampling” of industrial and commercial forms as source material for transformation. In the darkroom and studio, she has pushed her work beyond the single frame, from shredding, deconstructing, and reconstructing photographic prints in her earlier series to more recently incorporating drawing and painting directly onto large-scale photographic works. These interventions emphasize the artist’s hand and expand photography into mixed media terrain.

Clifton was born in South Africa, where she was first exposed to photography at a young age by her father, an avid photographer. She emigrated to the United States in 1994, where she honed her craft as a professional photographer in Austin, Texas. She moved to Marfa, Texas, in 2007, where she has been pushing the boundaries of the medium throughout various bodies of work over the years. 

She lives and works in Marfa, Texas.

Website: https://www.leanaclifton.com 
Instagram: @leanacliftonart

About Veldt Gallery

Veldt Gallery is a contemporary art space in the heart of Marfa, Texas, a high desert town revered as a center of minimalist thought and creative vision. The gallery showcases innovative mixed-media works by emerging and established artists, fostering dialogue between artists and collectors through bold, thought-provoking exhibitions. The name veldt—a South African word for high-desert grassland—reflects the gallery’s deep connection to landscape, space, and the expansive quiet that defines both Marfa and the work they champion.

Website: https://veldtgallery.com 
Instagram: @veldtgallery