Starting with vintage tintypes, Sheryll layers the images with history, botany, fantasy, and personal experience to construct a narrative for the women featured in the photograph. As a final touch, the artist names the women, which becomes the title of the piece, retroactively bestowing identity and agency upon women who otherwise would have had none. 

The artist’s advocacy evolves throughout her body of works, taking on a more specific cause in the more recent series HERbarium - HER Choice, in which the woman's subversive adaptation to patriarchal control over her person and body is highlighted by including visuals of particular herbs and flowers used by women to control their own reproductive system.

Whether through an exploration of a woman’s role in marriage, a young girl’s options, or lack thereof, for their future, or the perceived threat healers placed on society, Leslie Sheryll’s work is undeniably feminist.

To view more of her work, click here.