About

Hi, I’m Leigh Nelson, a contemporary digital artist from Toronto, Canada.

A lot of my work begins when I’m travelling usually with something I wasn’t actually looking for. It might be a group of roosters in Thailand who seemed perfectly happy to have a conversation with me, the glow of an evening sky, a crowded train station, or a quiet street that made me stop and wonder what its story was. I take those little moments home with me.

Using my own photography as a starting point, I mix real places with imagination, memory and a bit of the unexpected. Animals have a habit of wandering into my work too. Roosters, camels and whoever else decides to show up are welcome. They bring humour and personality into scenes that might otherwise feel completely ordinary.

My work tends to be layered but visually restrained. I love limited colour palettes, atmosphere, tunnels, passageways and places that feel as though they’re leading somewhere. I’m interested in that space between the familiar and the unknown  when an ordinary place suddenly feels like it could belong to another world. More than anything, I want my artwork to make you stop for a second. Maybe it reminds you of somewhere you’ve travelled.

I’m always looking for the next story. Sometimes I find it in a train station, sometimes on a quiet street and apparently, sometimes it finds me in the form of a rooster.