Annelisa Leinbach

Raised in the desert of the American Southwest in a family of geologists, I learned an appreciation for overlooked details in the landscape from a young age. I spent my days drawing maps of places that didn’t exist, charting their trade routes and political borders, and diagramming the life cycles of these kingdoms’ fictional plants and animals. As I grew older, I was drawn by the same beacon: the ability to create worlds. Painting allows me to lay out the intricacies of environmental and human interaction that I observe around me, in my own language.
Visitors to my elementary school would often comment on the mysterious presence of a miniature civilization hidden on the playground: shelves made of stones in the forks of tree branches, displaying dried berries; tiny replicas of thatch-roof cottages; secret underground bunkers with roofs of sticks and leaves that would unexpectedly collapse underfoot.
This impulse led me to a full scholarship to Yale, where I was able to travel to Mongolia, Jerusalem, France, Barbados, Japan, Romania, Iceland, and finally Berlin in pursuit of artistic projects. Upon graduating in 2016, I was recognized as the most outstanding visual artist in my graduating class. I currently work as a fre...

Yale University, BA, 2016

School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Summer Painting Intensive, 2011

Corcoran School of the Arts and Design at George Washington University, Summer Painting Intensive, 2010

Mesa Community College, Painting Courses, 2008-2011

2018 Resident Artist, Foundation OBRAS, Portugal

2018 Resident Artist, Ponderosa Arts Centre, Stolzenhagen, Germany

2017 Central City South Mural Project, Phoenix, Arizona, sponsored by Phoenix Mural Project

2017 Berlin Graphic Days, Berlin, Germany

2017 Resident Artist, Kunsthalle Flath, Bad Segeberg, Germany

2017 August 2017 Artist Exchange with Art Aia, Venice, Italy

2017 Invisible Cities, Solo Show, La Dolce Berlin, Berlin, Germany

2016 Sweet Sixteen, Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT

2015 Mural Collaboration with Street Artist Daze, Yale Art Gallery, New Haven, CT

2015 Yale's Response to Charlie Hebdo, Silliman Gallery, New Haven, CT

2013 Auvillar Advanced Studio Fellowship, Auvillar, France, and Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT

AWARDS

2017 Winner, STEP Travel Grant, European Cultural Foundation

2016 Grand Prize Winner, New Haven Chalk Art Festival

2016 Ethel Childe Walker Prize for Exceptional Artistic Development of a Yale Art Major

2016 Nominee, Sudler Prize for Outstanding Contributions to the Arts a...