Leah Fadness
Leah Fadness (she/they) is a Seattle artist whose layered blind contour portraits and mixed-media works explore the figure through abstraction.
Upcoming Show: Scrimsli at Vermillion May 7 - 30, 2026
Latest Art Inspiration: Jamie Wyeth & Auguste Rodin
Latest Music Inspiration: Goodbye by Apparat & Ocean by Tomo Nakayama
First Figure It Out: June 2024 - André
About Leah
Leah Fadness grew up in the lower Yakima Valley and moved to Seattle in 2002 to study painting at Cornish College of the Arts.
As a part of their studio practice, Fadness attends figure drawing nights regularly and does solo sessions with local dancers as models. Their style of portraiture is intuitive drawing through layered blind contour sketches. The technique is derived from a desire to meditate on the relationship between hand, eye, and mind.
It also provides Fadness with a modality to explore the figure through abstraction. In addition to abstract portraits, Fadness creates mixed-media portraits that incorporate drawing, painting, and printmaking, featuring people who are sources of inspiration in their life.
Skrimsli (Showing at Vermillion May 7 - 30, 2026)
Skrimsli, meaning monster in Old Norse, refers to the perception of Loki and his children as monstrosities that must be controlled or killed out of fear that they will bring about the apocalypse. This perspective feels like a mirror for how queerness is viewed by certain subsets of modern society.
In this series of drawings, Leah Fadness uses characters from Norse mythology to explore fear-based treatment of queerness through the lens of their cultural heritage's folklore. Creating this series has been a way of processing this repetition of misconceptions.
This body of work is a collaboration between Fadness and two dancers, Kyrin Grey and Ezra Dickinson, who posed for the series.
The inspiration for Skrimsli came from drawings Fadness made at Figure It Out!, the monthly queer figure drawing night at Vermillion. Works from these sessions are included in the show to illustrate how the idea began to take root.
Some of the drawings were useful for developing the concept, while others represent characters who fit the narrative.
Figure drawing remains an important part of Fadness's process, both as a regular practice and as a place where larger bodies of work can begin.
