Caly van Leeuwen: Sculpting Hybrid Forms

Caly van Leeuwen ’25’s studio — located on the bottom floor of Fayerweather Hall — feels less like a workspace and more like a living ecosystem in miniature. Wire limbs twist like branches, tufts of wool nestle into carved hollows, and plaster forms seem to echo the anatomy of creatures half-remembered, half-invented. Everything here points outward — toward forests, fields, and the subtle lives of animals. For van Leeuwen, the studio is not a place to escape nature, but to stay in conversation with it. Throughout their artistic endeavors at Amherst, van Leeuwen’s studio has been a reflection of the work they have created: an ever-evolving space where creativity, nature, and identity are continuously intertwined. 

Growing Up

Van Leeuwen grew up outside of Trenton, New Jersey, a landscape that they described as in between urban and suburban. “I spent a lot of time outside,” they reflected. “There’s this one red maple tree that I always think about that I spent probably cumulatively 1,000 hours in. That’s just a really special place.” They often enjoyed exploring pockets of wilderness within the city, such as “little liminal spaces between somebody’s house and the back of a strip mall where there’s a little creek flowing through.”

Van Leeuwen’s fascination with the outdoors has remained constant throughout their life. After graduating from high school in 2020, van Leeuwen took a gap year to study painting, particularly naturalistic portraiture influenced by Rembrandt and Sargent. But even as they learned to render human faces in oil, their fascination with nature and animals never left.

Academics at Amherst

Van Leeuwen was attracted to Amherst’s open curriculum and the opportunity to explore different disciplines. They entered their first year during the Covid pandemic. The use of masks was particularly interesting to van Leeuwen who, as a portrait artist, wanted to “know what people’s faces look like.” Van Leeuwen spent their first year taking “a lot of weird classes” as well as developing their foundation in math and art — their future majors. 

In Spring 2024, van Leeuwen participated in the research colloquium “Keystone Kin,” taught by Winthrop H. Smith 1916 Professor of American Studies and English Lisa Brooks. The research seminar explored the ecological interplay between beavers and coyotes as critical species to their environments, focusing on their roles in ecosystem dynamics and climate adaptation. Much of the class involved going into the natural habitats of these animals, tracking and studying their behaviors. It was a tactile, immersive experience that allowed van Leeuwen to understand animals not just as subjects of art, but as active players in ecological narratives.

Van Leeuwen appreciated “the ritual in that class of waking up early and getting in a van, going into the middle of the woods and spending a couple hours looking around and wondering, ‘What kind of stories can we find here?’”

Brooks was impressed by van Leeuwen’s dedication to the class. “What I remember most about Caly is that they showed very early on an incredible ability to be able to pick up bobcat tracks, and I remember being really struck by that,” she said. The semester after the class, van Leeuwen led a workshop in creating casts of foxes, coyotes, bobcats, raccoons, and deer with some classmates and peers, utilizing their artistic knowledge for a new purpose. With van Leeuwen’s instruction, “every single [cast] came out,” Brooks reflected. “We were blown away.”

The “Keystone Kin” course inspired van Leeuwen’s thesis topic, in which they examined the ways humans interact with each other and the nonhuman world.

“My chief interest in my thesis is the idea of the hybrid,” van Leeuwen explained. Hybrids did not mean a centaur or chimera, but rather entities that defy clear categorization — beings formed from an “alchemy” of many relationships, materials, and histories. Their work questions the notion of the individual as a discrete subject and instead views identity as an assemblage of interactions, objects, environments, and histories. Through sculpture, they explore this concept by layering materials until they are inseparable, symbolizing the complexity and entanglement of hybrid existence. Van Leeuwen asks the questions: “How do you make something that is, in the truest sense, a hybrid? How do you ask a viewer to turn back and consider themselves and consider relationships that they have as forming a hybrid existence?” 

In their thesis “Hybrid Throughout,” van Leeuwen explores these questions through a series of mixed media sculptures combining natural materials of wool and twigs with color emulsion, plaster, and foam.

Van Leeuwen’s thesis advisor, Senior Resident Artist Betsey Garand, captured the essence of van Leeuwen’s sculptures. “The combination of materials used are as inventive as the sculptures themselves, which embody imaginative inventions combining elements of both human and animal physiognomies with dramatically exaggerated gestures and unusual scale,” she wrote. “Included in the bodies of the sculptures are dwellings for smaller birds and feline creatures residing in nests and unexpected hollows.”

For their thesis, van Leeuwen did not just create art; they grounded their work with hours of in-depth research, “ranging from the observation of nature and natural occurrences; examining how nonbinary artists have been represented and/or excluded from the discourse on artists and artistic practice; queer theory, artists’ writings, paintings, sculptures and installations.” 

Brooks highlighted how van Leeuwen’s art powerfully embodied the theme of fluidity by visually capturing the blurred boundaries of human identity, offering shifting perceptions without rigid separation. 

“On the one hand, you would see [in their art] what seemed to be like an image of a cat appearing, and then you would see what seemed like the image of a human appearing … it was almost like shifting perception,” Brooks explained. She noted that van Leeuwen’s sculptures also reflected the fluid presence of place itself — blurring distinctions not only between beings but between bodies and environments.

One of van Leeuwen’s most significant accomplishments was their solo exhibition at the Eli Marsh Gallery, titled “Entangled.” The 2024 show featured paintings, pastel sketches, and a sculpture. Van Leeuwen spent over a year creating and organizing their work for the exhibition. The experience offered more than just a platform to showcase their art — it revealed something deeper about how artwork lives in space. No longer were their paintings scattered around a studio; they were arranged intentionally about the gallery. 

Life After Amherst 

Van Leeuwen will graduate from Amherst with a double major in both the practice of art and mathematics. In the fall, they will attend graduate school at the Mason Gross School of Arts at Rutgers University, pursuing a master’s of fine art degree in visual arts. 

Even outside of the studio, van Leeuwen’s connection to nature is palpable. Their friend, editor-in-chief emeritus Kei Lim ’25, remarked that “they’ve always been very focused on their art. Seeing [Caly] outside of that is always interesting, because when they get outside, rolling in the grass. They love creatures.” 

When I sat down with van Leeuwen, they mentioned that they “would be remiss if I didn’t at least mention my cat Ziggy.” They added that their relationship with Ziggy is deeper than an owner finding their animal cute; they have a genuine bond that transcends species lines. “Our usual human ways of disseminating and clarifying information — of talking or writing — are just entirely out of the question, and how do you reinvent languages for communication and for empathy?” they said. “It’s such an exciting and motivating thing for me to think about.”

Van Leeuwen’s work is deeply rooted in their connection to animals and the layered nature of identity. Through sculpture and material experimentation, they explore how identity is shaped not only from within, but through relationships with animals and environments. As they continue their artistic journey, van Leeuwen remains committed to finding more thoughtful, ethical ways to live with others — both human and non-human — in an interconnected world.