Leigh Gillam likes to draw, paint, involve others in story-telling and make art in different forms. She has a joint major in painting and sculpture having completed her BFA at Concordia University and is also a theatre maker, media artist and animator. She completed a visual and media arts MFA at Emily Carr University of Art + Design where her work utilized a range of media, facilitating interdisciplinary collaboration for stage and interactive media installation. Her work has been recognized across four provinces in cultural institutions such as Art Mûr, L’Atelier Circulaire and RedBird Studios in Montreal; Elora Centre for the Arts; the John B. Aird Gallery in Toronto, the Charles H.Scott and Concourse galleries in Vancouver and the Bloomfield Gallery in Antigonish.

ARTIST STATEMENT

My practice has evolved from painting to sculpture, to theatre design, to performance facilitation for stage, interactive installations in the gallery and more recently animation and mark making. My various projects have been opportunities to share in the navigation of sense experience and/or the co-creation of stories. I see my practice as an exchange; it is a phenomenological, relational approach that aims to increase understanding of the link between art and its broader contexts. I draw, paint and make to generate connections and unsettle assumptions. My current research lays at the intersections of art, ecology and decolonization. "Deep Earth" is a process of mapping and investigating deep geologic time. There is much to ponder about what has been discovered through science, but what role(s) might imagery, visual culture, and/or animation play to promote discourse and critical reflection? How can scientific ways of learning and knowing be influenced or transgressed by other ways of knowing and being? I am especially interested in discovering crossroads or opportunities between Science and Indigenous perspectives.