Leah Marie Goddard

My work explores the emotional power of color and the way our surroundings can influence how we feel, remember, and reconnect with ourselves.

For years, color was lost to me. When it returned to my life, I became intensely aware of how much emotion could exist inside a single hue, the energy of hot pink, the optimism of yellow, the depth of blue, and the tension created when unexpected colors meet. Painting became my way of translating those feelings into something visible.

My paintings are created using my Dopamine Layering Method™, a process I developed through layering highly saturated color, contrast, and expressive marks beneath and throughout each composition. I often begin with vivid underpaintings—frequently hot pinks and yellows, before building deeper blues, greens, reds, oranges, and unexpected color relationships over the surface.

Rather than completely covering those earlier layers, I allow portions of them to remain visible. The colors underneath become part of the emotional history of the painting, allowing joy and grief, softness and strength, calm and energy to exist together in the same work.

I am inspired by nature, memory, relationships, and the landscapes and ordinary moments that stay with us. I am less in...

Water’s Edge Gallery
Naturalist Gallery of Contemporary Art