Leesa is a figurative artist who writes when the grief is too overwhelming to paint and paints when she can’t find the words, pouring her emotions onto the canvas. Art has been her catharsis through the living nightmare of child loss.

A highlight of Leesa’s career was an artist residency at Chateau Orquaveaux, France, in 2019. Living at the chateau for four weeks with artists from around the world was a dream come true and an experience she will never forget.

During her Master of Fine Arts degree, Leesa pushed the boundaries of her practice exploring different techniques and mediums. Leesa purposely sources materials such as textiles, fashion magazines and photographs to explore how society measures gender, ideas of power and notions of beauty. Similarly, she uses text as a reminder of how the spoken word can propel change.

Leesa aims to empower the intersectional feminine identity by painting women, adorning them with gems, butterflies and flowers, symbolic of the fraught relationship women have to beauty, innocence, protection and patriarchy. “Importantly I use them as separate components that may stand on their own or to an idea of interconnectedness, overlapping identities and intersectionality. My objective being to arrange them to form a harmonious artwork that links all of these elements together.”

Leesa has participated in several group exhibitions, finally having her first solo show in 2021 at BlackCat Gallery. Leesa’s intention has always been to capture the likeness of her subjects - Painting faces, either on canvas or in the flesh, will always be a constant source of pleasure and her true passion!