About
Leigh de Vries is a UK-based multidisciplinary artist working across sculpture, text, sound, video, and participatory installation.
Her work examines how contemporary environments shape emotional life. Rather than treating distress as a private failure of the individual, de Vries explores the social, architectural, and cultural conditions that organise how we feel.
From this inquiry she developed the concept of Mental Environmentalism — the proposition that emotional life cannot be separated from the environments in which it unfolds.
Her work reframes distress as environmental signal rather than personal deficiency. As she often states: we do not blame the fish for struggling in polluted water.
Through large-scale text and participatory structures, de Vries temporarily reframes public space, creating environments where emotions usually pushed into privacy — grief, anger, shame, overwhelm — become visible and shared.
In many of her installations, visitors write directly onto the artwork itself, gradually covering monumental structures with thousands of handwritten emotional fragments.
What first appears as individual confession slowly reveals a collective emotional landscape.
Her work shifts attention away from the question “How should the individual cope?” toward a different one:
What kind of environment produces this feeling?
Her work has been exhibited internationally across the UK, Europe, and the United States in collaboration with museums, galleries, and academic institutions.
At the centre of her practice is a simple proposition:
We don’t feel too much.
Maybe there just isn’t enough room.
Her work expands that space.
Selected Exhibitions
2026 ‘HOW ARE YOU’ – Installation, Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, Dresden, DE.
2025 ‘FEEL ME’ – Installation, Trapholt Museum, Kolding, DK.
2023 ‘IT’S OK’ – Large Typographic Sculpture, Site Gallery, Sheffield, UK.
2022 ‘A RELATIONAL SPACE’ – Large Typographic Sculpture, Clifton Park Museum, UK.
2021 ‘RELOAD KINDNESS’ – Typographic 3D Mapping Projection on Minster, UK.
2021 ‘SEE ME’ – A Virtual Reality Exposure Experience, BDD Foundation & OCD Action, UK.
2018 ‘IDENTITY’ – Exhibition, ZebraOne Gallery, London, UK.
2017 ‘Body Dysmorphic Disorder Explored’ – Exhibition, UCLA, Los Angeles, USA.
2016 ‘Love Is Louder’ – Exhibition, Coterie Gallery, UK.
2015 ‘Exposure: MyBrokenReality’ – Installation, UK.
2015 ‘Exposure’ – BDD Foundation, University of London, Brunei Gallery, London, UK.
2014 ‘Strange’ – Video Installation, South Place Gallery, London, UK.
2014 ‘Strange’ – Video Installation, Red Gallery, London, UK.
SELECTED COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS
2018 TALKEX17 – Projected #Leighisms, in association with Rotherham Open Arts Renaissance, UK.
2017 Gozra Lozano, ‘DECADEnce’ featuring Leigh de Vries, La Fresh Gallery, Madrid, ES.
2016 VOYD – Falk Klemm Video Installation, London, UK.
2014 Fernando Carpaneda – Coquetel de reinauguração da Galeria Almeida Prado, BR.
2013 Art Takes Times Square – Fernando Carpaneda & Leigh de Vries, displayed on giant LED screens, NY, USA.
ACHIEVEMENTS
2023 Awarded Developing Your Creative Practice, Arts Council England, UK.
2021 Awarded Grants for the Arts, Arts Council England, UK.
2015 Awarded Grants for the Arts, Arts Council England, UK.
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
2018 ‘Breaking Boundaries for Museums’ – Ironbridge Museum Trust & Arts Council England, UK.
2016 ‘How to Use the Arts to Engage Young People’ – Ironbridge Museum Trust & Arts Council England, UK.
2016 ‘National Eating Disorders Awareness Week’ – Syeda, UK.
2015 ‘The Cultural Prescription: How Can the Arts Support Health & Wellbeing?’ – Museum Development Yorkshire & Arts Council England, UK.
Say Hello
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