Barbara Leidl: Personal Matters
Throughout October 2026 Aleph Contemporary is pleased to present Personal Matters, an exhibition of paintings by Stroud-based artist Barbara Leidl.
Leidl works primarily in portraiture, using a restrained palette of earth pigments and traditional techniques in oil and egg tempera. Her paintings bring together a deep interest in early European painting with the immediacy and psychological presence of contemporary portraiture.
“I often place my models in what I can only describe as ‘fictions’. These stories are open to interpretation.”
For Leidl, the history of painting is an active source rather than something to be reproduced. Artists have always learned by looking at and copying the work of others, but her paintings are not intended as straightforward quotations or replicas. Instead, she draws together elements from different sources — particularly Medieval and Renaissance painting — combining poses, motifs, costumes and visual references with contemporary sitters.
These disparate elements create paintings that operate almost as assemblages: images built from fragments of art history, observation, memory and invention. Familiar references are displaced and reimagined, allowing each portrait to suggest its own ambiguous narrative.
About the Artist
Barbara Leidl was born in Canada and studied painting at the Alberta College of Art, graduating with Distinction, before completing an MFA at Concordia University, Montreal. She moved to the UK in 1996 and has lived in Stroud, Gloucestershire, for the past nine years.
The landscape and creative community of Stroud have become important influences on her practice, while her longstanding fascination with historic painting continues to shape both the technique and atmosphere of her work.
Her portraits have been exhibited widely, including at the National Portrait Gallery, the Mall Galleries, the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, the New English Art Club, and Green & Stone, Chelsea.
Selected Exhibitions & Awards
2025 — Gothic, solo exhibition, The Cacao Shop, Stroud
2024–25 — Here Be Monsters, solo exhibition, Fireside Bookshop, Stroud
2024 — Summer Exhibition, The Gallery at Green & Stone, Chelsea, London
2024 — Sibling Rivalry, two-person exhibition, Lansdown Gallery, Stroud
2024 — New English Art Club Annual Exhibition, Mall Galleries, London
2023 — A Table Among Angels, solo exhibition, Coco Caravan Cacao House, Stroud
2022 — The Mind’s I, group exhibition, Gardens Gallery, Cheltenham
2022 — A Show for the Ghosts, solo exhibition, Gardens Gallery, Cheltenham
2021 — A Show for the Ghosts, solo exhibition, Lansdown Gallery, Stroud
2018 — Personal Affects, solo exhibition, Lansdown Gallery, Stroud
2017 — Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize Exhibition, Katherine (and Monkey), Mall Galleries, London
2015 — Katherine (and Millie) featured on the cover of Millie & Bird: Tales of Paradise by Avril Joy, IRON Press
2012 — BP Portrait Award, Katherine (and Millie), National Portrait Gallery, London
2012 — Lynn Painter-Stainers Award Exhibition, I Dream of Monsters, Mall Galleries, London
1998 — Royal Society of Portrait Painters exhibition
1998 — Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Summer Residency
1994 — MFA, Concordia University, Montreal
1988 — Diploma in Painting, with Distinction, Alberta College of Art, Calgary
1988 — Governor General of Canada Bronze Medal
1988 — Laura Mae Stillings Award