Charleston native Lese Corrigan's work is representational but more expressionistic than realistic. The paintings are full of color and the joyful playfulness of life; surfaces imbued with light – color and texture being the defining structure. Corrigan fully immersed herself in the visual arts in the late 1980s, working her way through the different opportunities in the art community. An oil painter, whose portraits and landscapes pull together in a vibrant expressionistic manner the play of light and the resulting changes in hue and shade that delight the eye in the course of the day, Corrigan also works in other media - linocuts, photography and clay and marble sculpture.

Coca Cola commissioned a painting that was presented to Barbara Bush in 1995. She was poster artist for the Charleston Cup Steeplechase 2003 and featured in the Fall 2003 issue of the international Orient Express Magazine. Corrigan and her painting debuted on Turner South Network’s 3 Day Weekend Charleston’s episode that premiered in 2005 and she was the Gibbes Museum Poets' and Painters’ program artist in residence for 2005. She painted the image for the poster for the Queen City Classic Horse Show in Charlotte, North Carolina for 2006. Corrigan's paintings are in collections in the United States, France, Great Britain and Japan. In 2006 Ros Smith created a five minute film documentary entitled "Curlesque" on Corrigan's painting process. A solo show in 2006 utilized the Fibonnacci and golden rectangle relations and in 2008 explored her Charleston surroundings with Mid-River. Her 2010 show presented a different viewpoint of her home with a group of paintings that work as one while her 2012 series tackles the sky.  2014's series of paintings focus on interiors of all sorts and the light within them.  The 2016 series was paintings and woodcuts of Charleston churches - an ongoing series. Corrigan was the recipient of the 2014 Griffith-Reyburn Lowcountry Artist Award for her series of woodcuts depicting Charleston single houses.  She presented at Pecha Kucha 27 in Charleston in 2017.  Corrigan also went to Greece to study marble carving in 2017 expanding her horizons immeasurably.  Her 2018 show centered on the mythology of persimmons and pomegranates with her monk image and and interpretation of the Venus of Willendorf. Her work was included in the first five years of the Artfields' competition.

Corrigan's work was selected for the Medical University of South Carolina's contemporary collection for the Ashley River Tower. She was the president for 2009 of the CFADA - Charleston Fine Art Dealers' Association and remains active in the promotion of Charleston as the fine arts' destination it has been for centuries.  She also serves on the Mayor of Charleston's Commission for the Arts and on South Carolina Art Foundation board.