Marina Dempster

Artist Catalogue and Website Design

Working with Marina is never just about design. It’s a collaboration rooted in deep respect — for her art, her process, her writing, and the way she moves through the world with intention. She’s an artist who crafts meaning as much as she crafts materials. Her work stirs something — visually, yes, but also emotionally and intellectually. Her writing has that same quality — it asks you to slow down, to sit with ideas, to let meaning settle.

Marina has a prolific journaling practice, and she’s always playing with the layers of language — turning words over, finding resonance in paradox, letting meaning unfold slowly. Her Substack, wORd, is just one example. In it, she invites us to reflect deeply, with warmth and curiosity — not to fix ourselves, but to come back into balance.

The catalogues we’ve created together aren’t just for showcasing artwork. They’re thoughtful records of bodies of work that have taken years to complete — emotionally layered, process-rich, and worthy of being memorialised. These publications become keepsakes — for Marina herself, for her family, her community, and the people moved by her practice. She’s already thinking about creating catalogues for two more significant series — Re[Collection] and In//Sensitive — continuing this thread of preserving not just the final works, but the meaning and transformation behind them.

That same intention carries through her website, which brings together her many creative expressions — visual art, photography, collaborations, and writing — in one cohesive, quietly powerful space.

In//Habit Artist Catalogue Design

Honouring Memory and Transformation

This was our first project together — a 24-page printed catalogue designed to reflect the intimacy, patience, and layered meaning of Marina’s fibre-based body of work In//Habit. Created over two years, this quartet of hooked fibre works embodies a deep reckoning toward healing, connection, and community.

The technique — rug hooking with salvaged textiles — is simple but powerful. Marina used torn strips of fabric that carried memory: an old dress, her husband’s jeans, inherited silk, donated wool blankets. These weren’t just materials, they were vessels of emotion and story.

She wanted the catalogue to feel handmade, but not overly styled. Something tactile and intentional, yet easy to mail. I leaned into a journal-like format: full images of each finished piece on one page, with the opposite page featuring a handwritten list of materials — scanned from Marina’s blue ink notes — paired with a torn photo edge showing a close-up of the work. These torn edges weren’t just aesthetic — they mirrored the literal tearing and transformation at the heart of the pieces.

The result is an intimate yet profound document. It’s not just a catalogue — it’s a quiet companion to the work. A visual and emotional extension of Marina’s process, holding space for both her materials and her meaning.

Marina Dempster’s Website Design

Creating Space for a Multifaceted Practice

Marina’s website (marinadempster.com) had to hold everything — her visual art, her photography, her writing, and her collaborations. In the past, she juggled two separate sites for different facets of her creative life. But the boundaries between those practices didn’t exist for her — so the new site needed to reflect that fluid, integrated approach.

We used WordPress with custom post types to keep things flexible and organised. Now, each artwork and collaboration lives in its own space, while still feeling part of a cohesive whole. The site gives room for reflection — for writing, photography, and process — and is intentionally designed to be best experienced on a larger screen. (We both believe creative work deserves more than a mobile scroll.)

One of Marina’s strengths is photography — both of her work and others’. Her longtime collaborator Christina Gapic has taken stunning portraits of Marina at work. These visuals play a central role in the site’s design — not just illustrating, but expanding the story. The result is a digital space that feels alive, layered, and deeply personal — just like Marina’s practice.

Harmony of the Spheres Artist Catalogue Design

Sacred Artifacts, Carefully Documented

For this second catalogue, we kept the same compact 24-page format — a conscious decision to create continuity across her publications.

The artworks — sculptural basketballs transformed bead by bead — use a contemporary interpretation of a Pre-Columbian Huichol beading technique. Marina embedded glass, crystal, and metallic seed beads into a mixture of beeswax and pine resin, traditionally called cera de Campeche. While the shape of the ball remains, it has undergone a complete transmutation — becoming a sacred artifact that explores tension, transformation, and the power of perspective.

Each piece is covered with intricate patterns and symbols, calling into question what we see, what we overlook, and what lies beneath. On the artwork spreads, we used image grids to show multiple angles of each sphere — allowing readers to take in the work slowly, just as it was created. The catalogue also incorporates process photography, showing the careful, meditative practice of embedding each bead by hand.

We designed Harmony of the Spheres after the work was exhibited at the Lyceum Gallery. This gave us the opportunity to include installation views, and to design the catalogue not only as documentation — but as celebration.

What Marina Says About Our Collaboration

“Before I found Leelee, I was struggling to take my professional print and online presence to the next level. I had no idea what having a professional designer to assist me would facilitate. Working with Leelee has helped me to access new opportunities and to build my audience with confidence. When Leelee and I began collaborating it was absurdly clear how stuck I might have been without her service and guidance.

Over the course of our collaboration Leelee has been able to assist me in a myriad of ways; the strategy and design of a gorgeous artist’s catalogue, a professional website with newsletter and blog that I am now able to maintain myself, as well as the web design and back end management of a very complex curatorial project involving over 20 artists and with mind numbing retail ramifications. Leelee’s innate creativity is backed up with intelligence and ingenuity.

Working with Leelee is a clear, systemic and boundaried process. I know what I am required to prepare and to provide in order to make the process as efficient and enjoyable as possible. Leelee has also provided me with extensive training so that I am also expanding my skills and confidence in keeping my professional presence relevant and fresh. As an artist herself, she is able to understand and appreciate the nuances of the look and feel of each project.

Leelee is super passionate about her work, and has very high standards for the work that she does. I have witnessed her consistently upgrade her skills and capacities to be ahead of the demands of her clients. Having someone like Leelee be the backbone of my design projects is an absolute boon. The materials and resources that she has produced for me are beautiful, inspired, clean and effective communication tools that have enabled me to access opportunities that would have been otherwise elusive.

What has surprised me the most about working with Leelee is how undaunted and enthusiastic she is about each project in spite of my being overwhelmed. She makes the collaborative process seamless and rewarding. Leelee’s ability to rise to any of creative design challenges and her sustained support at every stage of the process is invaluable to me.”

— Marina Dempster, Sculptural Artist