Leisa Rich

Leisa Rich was born and raised in Ontario, Canada, but spent most of her adult life living and working in the U.S. and traveling the world. In October 2020, Leisa returned to live permanently in Canada. Her home and studio/gallery is in a 100 year old farmhouse with recent modern additions, on 3+ acres of Old MacDonald's Farm, on Howe Island, on the mighty St. Lawrence River. The island has no retail, no doctors, nothing but cottages and houses, animals and birds, thousands of honking geese in the late fall and early spring, and is accessible only by ferry! It is to nature that Rich turns for much of her subject matter.

Her destiny as a fiber artist began early with a satin trimmed blankie; Leisa had to run the satin through her fingers from one end to the other before she could fall asleep. As a child, she spent years in the hospital due to illness and deafness, dressing her Barbie and Ken in clothes her mother made.

Tactile sensations were there even when sound and humans were not. Leisa is legally deaf.

Rich is a very experimental artist working primarily with fibers and mixed media in 2D, sculptural, and installation formats, and incorporates 3D printing, laser engraving, AI and other unexpected techniques into her textural...

2007 Master of Fine Art- Fibers, College of Visual Arts and Design, The University of North Texas, TX

1993 Bachelor of Education-Art, The University of Western Ontario Faculty of Education, London, Ontario, Canada

1982 Bachelor of Fine Art- Fibers, The University of Michigan Penny W. School of Visual Art, Ann Arbor, MI

1978 Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

1975-1978 Interlochen Center for the Arts, graduate '78, Interlochen, MI

Selected Exhibitions:

2025

Fiberart International, Pittsburgh, PA (juried, group exhibition)

The Artist Project, Toronto, Ontario

2024

Buried Seeds Crack Open In The Dark (solo) KSA Window Gallery, Kingston, Ontario

(almost) Colour Less (solo) J2 Gallery + Studio, Gananoque, Ontario

"Blossom" Lonsdale Gallery in Toronto, Ontario

2023

World of Threads, International exhibition, QE Cultural Center, Oakville, Ontario

Safe Zone solo exhibition, MELT Studio & Gallery, Picton, Ontario

Safekeeping, Gallery 108, Tulsa, Oklahoma

Gentle Disruptions, Union Gallery, Queens University, Kingston, Ontario

Tenuous Threads, Atlantic Gallery, Chelsea, NYC

unframed, Propeller gallery, Toronto, Ontario

Glenhyrst Biennial Juried Exhibition, Brantford, Ontario


2022

She Packs A Punch, solo exhibition, MAK Gallery, Gananoque, Ontario

Stantec Architecture, (solo) Toronto, Ontario
(sponsored by DesignTO)

2020

Diversionary Antics, CCU Rebecca Randall Bryan Art Gallery, Conway, South Carolina

Castaways: Art From the Material World, The Robert Bateman Foundation Gallery, Victoria, British Columbia

2019

Aftermath: In The Pink, (solo) Thomas Deans Fine Art, Atlanta, Georgia

The Saccharine Sublime (solo) Signature Gallery, Atlant...