Photo credit: Frank Neufeld
Leah Davis (b.1986, Thurso, Scotland)
MA Fine Art - with Merit (2022)
BA Contemporary Art - First Class (2020)
Works from her studio in Lossiemouth, Scotland
Leah Davis (b.1986, Thurso, Scotland) is a Scottish artist working primarily in oil. Her practice has grown from a long-standing curiosity about identity, memory, and the quieter psychological landscapes we carry within us. Through figurative work that moves between the symbolic and the intimate, she explores how personal history and inherited narratives become ingrained in the body over time.
Growing up in Caithness, she became aware early on of a sense of otherness that never quite left. That feeling continues to shape her practice. Her paintings combine vulnerability and resilience, depicting solitary figures that seem suspended between inner and outer worlds.
In 2026, she began developing Machair, a body of work that returns to her home county of Caithness. Working with what she calls, altered relics, and weathered material surfaces, the series considers preservation, erosion, and what it means to carry a place with you long after you have left.
The work will be exhibited at Thurso Art Gallery in January/February 2027.
Davis holds an MA in Fine Art (Merit) and a First Class BA in Contemporary Art. Her work has been exhibited across Scotland and internationally, and she was runner-up in the 2023 Highland Art Prize.
Her paintings continue to resonate with collectors, curators, and kindred spirits alike.
“I grew up in the northernmost town on mainland Scotland. From a young age, I was drawn to stories, myths, and strange little curiosities. I often felt a bit out of step with the people around me, and that sense of difference has shaped both who I am and the work I make.
My grandmother’s love of clowns and witchcraft also left a strong impression on me. Those early influences still show up in my paintings. Ruffles, bowties, and recurring symbols connect personal memory to something older, stranger, and familiar at once.
My work comes from lived experience. These are not portraits in the usual sense, but reflections on inner life. I am interested in what we carry quietly, and in how experience, family history, and inherited stories continue to shape us.
With my upcoming series, Machair (2027), this turns more directly towards place. Not as something I left behind, but as something I still carry with me. The work is about how the memories, stories, and history of a hometown become part of your inner world.
The phrase Among the Strangers comes from Gallaibh, the Gaelic name associated with my home county of Caithness, often understood as meaning “among the strangers” or “among the foreigners.” For me, I can relate to this phrase strongly, as it reflects both the layered history of the county and the feeling of being part of it while also slightly apart from it.
Through my work, I want to create moments of recognition. A pause. A feeling that what seems unusual or lonely may, in fact, be shared.”
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