Leah Bullen

I completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Honours) and a Doctor of Philosophy, Creative Arts, at the School of Art & Design at the Australian National University in Canberra. I have worked extensively in arts education as a lecturer at the School of Art and Design from 2008-2016 in the Painting Workshop. Currently I work as a freelance arts teacher across the public and private sector.

In 2021, I won the Stanthorpe Art Prize and The Pring Memorial Prize as part of the Wynne Prize. In 2016, I won the Trustees’ Watercolour Prize in the Wynne Prize. I have been a selected finalist in art prizes such as the Mosman Art Prize, the Hazelhurst Art on Paper Award, McClelland Watercolour Prize, the Elaine Bermingham Watercolour Prize, Flowing Water: Taoyuan International Watercolour Biennial (Taiwan), and the Fabriano International Watercolour Biennial (Italy).

Across my career, I have exhibited work in artist-run-initiatives as well as commercial and public art galleries around Australia and internationally. I have undertaken artist residencies at the Bundanon Trust, Hill End Artist Residency Program, Hazelhurst Arts Centre, The Old School Mount Wilson, the Australian National University and the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Valencia, Spain. In 2016, I became a member of the Australian Watercolour Institute and an Artist Ambassador for Winsor and Newton Australia.

My painting practice is centred around the representation and mediation of the natural world.

Currently, my work is concerned with representing locations that reconstruct nature, such as gardens, aquariums, and museum displays. These locations act as a model through which I explore how we experience and consume the spectacle of nature more broadly within contemporary culture.