Leah Evans (b. 2001, Innisfail, Alberta) is a visual artist from rural Alberta, currently living and working in Waterloo, Ontario. Through figurative painting informed by family film strips and archival imagery, she constructs narrative scenes that blur the line between reality and fiction. Rooted in a Prairie Gothic sensibility, her work draws on the visual language of small-town suburbia, examining the social rituals, politics, and haunting undercurrents of these environments.
Family homes, cul-de-sacs, living rooms, backyards, and roadside landscapes recur throughout her paintings. Informed by her upbringing in rural Alberta and a familial history connected to the funerary services, these familiar settings become sites of decay and looming collapse. Influenced by Gothic fiction, eco-horror, and post-apocalyptic narratives, Evans is interested in what lingers beneath the surface of ordinary places, and how shifts in context, time, and perspective can render the familiar strange.
Family film strips and her own photographic practice serve as important points of departure within her work. She reworks these images into staged tableaux that suggest an "after-us" atmosphere, where domestic scenes and objects have begun to slip into disrepair. Windows, doors, fences, and property lines recur throughout the paintings as thresholds between interior and exterior worlds, the familiar and the unknown.
Animals frequently occupy these landscapes. Dogs wander through suburban streets, backyards, and living rooms, existing somewhere between the domestic and the wild. At times they take on a ghostly quality, haunting the scenes they inhabit. Horses emerge in a similarly ambiguous manner, often appearing as carousel figures, coin-operated rides, ceramic ornaments, or silhouettes. Referencing the iconography of the Four Horsemen while remaining grounded in the imagery of prairie life. The presence of these animals becomes a recurring reminder of what remains in our absence.
Evans is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Waterloo, and received her BFA with Great Distinction from the University of Lethbridge. Her graduate research has been supported by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Ontario Graduate Studies Award. She has exhibited across Canada, including her solo show Blossoms in the Suburbs, Platform Gallery, Casa, Lethbridge (2023). Select group shows include Visiting the Landscape, Gallery 1313, Toronto (2026); Be There & Be Square, Casa Gallery, Lethbridge (2025); Identifying Self, Yates Theatre, Lethbridge (2023); and Art from the Unknown, Edmonton, (2021). She has been the recipient of several awards, including The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Scholarship for Visual Arts, Alberta Foundation for the Arts (2024); The Roloff Beny Foundation Photography Award in Fine Arts (2023); and The Gushul Studio Artist Residency Prize (2022). Her work has been featured in publications including SEVEN Magazine (2026); and Petal Projections (2024).
Curriculum Vitae
Leah Evans
b. 2001, Innisfail, Alberta
Education
2025 - 2027 (currently) MFA candidate, University of Waterloo, ON.
2020 - 2024 BFA Art Studio with Great Distinction and Honours Thesis, University of Lethbridge, AB.
Solo Exhibitions
2024 Chance Encounters: NYC Street Photography - University of Lethbridge, AB
Exploring Girlhood, undergraduate thesis exhibition - University of Lethbridge, AB (March 28)
2023 Gushul Residency Showcase - University of Lethbridge, AB
Blossoms in the Suburbs - Platform Gallery at Casa, Lethbridge, AB (April 15 - June 3)
2022 Absence, Vacancy- University of Lethbridge, AB
Two-Person Exhibitions
2022 Reconstruction - Niche Gallery, University of Lethbridge, AB
Group Exhibitions
2026 Visiting the Landscape - Gallery 1313, Toronto, ON (March 18 - 29)
2025 Recomposition - Artery, University of Waterloo, ON (September 25 - October 5)
Be There & Be Square - Trap\Door at Casa, Lethbridge, AB (June 14 - August 23)
2024 Trajectories - Casa, Lethbridge, AB (April 6 - June 4)
Fluidity - Penny Building Gallery, Lethbridge, AB (March 12 - 15)
2023 Identifying Self - Yates Theatre, Lethbridge, AB (November 17 - February 10)
Fever. Dream. Blast - University of Lethbridge, AB (April 6)
Life After - Penny Building Gallery, Lethbridge, AB (March 3 - 10)
2022 Round About - University of Lethbridge, AB
2021 Art from the Unknown - Online exhibition, based in Edmonton, AB
Residencies
2023 Gushul Artist Residency - Blairmore, AB, Canada (May 1 - 31)
Grants and Awards
2026 Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada Graduate Scholarship, Master’s (CGRS-M) - University of Waterloo, ON.
Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS) - University of Waterloo, ON.
2024 Alberta Foundation for the Arts - Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Scholarship for Visual Arts
University of Lethbridge - Art Student Purchase Award
2023 University of Lethbridge - Roloff Beny Foundation Photographic Award in Fine Arts
University of Lethbridge - Excellence in Art Studio Award
University of Lethbridge - Abbondànza Fine Arts Undergraduate Scholarship
2022 Casa and the University of Lethbridge - Platform: Casa Student Showcase
University of Lethbridge - Gushul Studio Artist Residency Prize
2021 University of Lethbridge - Gordon Mantle Memorial Scholarship in Art
University of Lethbridge - The George and Olive Spinks Scholarship in the Fine Arts
Permanent Collections
2024 Mirrored Image of My Mother - purchased by the University of Lethbridge for Abbondànza fundraiser. Lethbridge, AB.
Her House - purchased by the University of Lethbridge through Art Student Purchase Award. Lethbridge, AB.
2023 Untitled Drawings #7 and #11, purchased by Casa as part of the Curator’s Office Collection. Lethbridge, AB.
Interviews and Publications
2026 SEVEN Magazine, Issue 4, featured artist.
2025 Circe Magazine, Issue 4, featured artist.
2024 Petal Projections Magazine, Issue 10, featured artist.