Courtney M. Leonard, a Shinnecock artist whose work explores the connections between marine life, Indigenous communities and environmental and cultural issues, has a new exhibition on display at the East End Seaport Museum & Marine Foundation (100 3rd Street, Greenport, 631-477-2100).
BREACH: Logbook 26 / Convergence is part of Leonard’s BREACH series, which she has been developing since 2014.
Viewers will recognize local maritime landmarks in a video projection on the museum’s wall. Footage includes Bug Light, the Oki-Do Oyster Factory and Gardiners Bay, all projected in the shape of Long Island — a visual reference to Walt Whitman’s famous “fish-shaped island.”
Photo Credit: Stephanie Villani
There are multiple maritime references in this many-layered exhibition, which also features ceramics, paintings and hanging works alongside the museum’s Fresnel lens collection from local lighthouses.
Upstairs, Leonard’s ceramic pieces reference scrimshaw, the folk-art tradition in which whalers carved designs into bone, ivory or whale teeth. Leonard’s ceramic “whale’s teeth” feature images of Indigenous women in coastal scenes as well as whales and fish, displayed in concert with vibrantly colored paintings shaped like oyster shells.
Photo Credit: Stephanie Villani
“Courtney Leonard has a way of seeing through time — through the layers of geography, history, and human relationship that accumulate in a place like Greenport,” says Erin Kimmel, executive director of the museum. “Her work doesn’t dramatize this harbor’s history. It holds it carefully, bringing it into the present and invites you to experience it. We feel extraordinarily fortunate to have her work here.”
Leonard is a nationally known multimedia artist and filmmaker from the Shinnecock Nation. She holds degrees from the Rhode Island School of Design, Alfred University’s New York College of Ceramics, and the Institute of American Indian Arts.
Leonard’s BREACH series is inspired by 19th century whaling ship logbooks. Each installation reflects “a year of the artist’s engagement with environmental fragility and cultural resilience,” according to the museum.
The Greenport installation, Convergence, takes its name from the idea of a place where currents meet. The museum describes it as “a zone where distinct forces, histories and knowledge systems flow together and transform.”
Leonard’s work also explores food and cultural sovereignty, along with ongoing environmental issues that affect the Shinnecock Nation and Long Island as a whole. The Heckscher Museum, which presented a retrospective of Leonard’s work in 2023, noted these themes in its discussion of the artist; the exhibition was Leonard’s first solo museum show.
Previous installations in the BREACH series include BREACH: Logbook 24 | Scrimshaw at the New Bedford Whaling Museum and BREACH; Logbook 24 | Staccato at the University Museum of Contemporary Arts in Amherst, Massachusetts. The latter was based on a scientific study of the life and remains of Staccato, a deceased female Right whale.
Leonard will mount another BREACH exhibition, yet to be titled, at the Institute of the Arts and Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in September 2027.
BREACH: Logbook 26 / Convergence will be on display through October 2026 at the East End Seaport Museum & Marine Foundation. Admission is $5 for adults, $3 for children 12 and under and free for members.
Summer hours are Thursday through Sunday, 10:30 a.m.-5 p.m.; the museum is closed Tuesday and Wednesday. For more information, visit the museum’s website.
