Bio
 

Leyla Bulmer (b. 1989, Melbourne, Australia) is an Irish Australian artist creating on Boon Wurrung and Bunurong Country on the Mornington Peninsula. Living between Ireland and Australia has shaped an ongoing exploration of belonging, identity, and the unseen threads that connect people, place, and the more-than-human.

 

Working primarily in painting, Leyla’s practice now moves through abstract and atmospheric fields shaped by memory and emotion. It gives form to experiences that are often felt rather than seen. Her work explores the body as an archive, evoking states of presence, and a sensory connection to belonging. Through intuitive and material-led processes, she creates works that hold inner worlds.

 

Leyla has presented solo exhibitions in Australia, India, and Sri Lanka, and has undertaken artist residencies across Australia and South Asia. Her earlier Body Portrait practice explored embodied portraiture through participatory and collaborative works. Listening to the stories bodies hold has deepened her curiosity for the unknown and unseen, which continues to underpin her painting practice today. Her work is held in private collections in Australia and internationally. She is part of the artist collective Deep See Survey and is represented by Lander—Se. 

Artist Statement 
 

I paint with ink over canvas in bold fluid motion. My paintings are imagined landscapes that my body holds, atmospheric representations of inner worlds. I pour and layer paint, then step back and watch it soak. Unable to control the materials, the paintings become a collaboration, an exercise in trust. The process itself is a practice in unknown outcomes. Through dissolving outlines and overlapping layers my practice is a way of questioning certainty and expanding into the more-than-human. It makes space for the unseen. My work is an embodied exploration of belonging and the in-between.

 

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Artist CV

 

b. 1989, Melbourne, Australia. Grew up in Ireland (1995–2022) and continues to grow, live and work on Boon Wurrung and Bunurong Country, Mornington Peninsula, Australia.

 

Represented by Lander—Se, Red Hill.

 

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

 

2025 The Stories Our Bodies Hold, Deep See Survey, Shoreham 

2024 Bodies of Nature, Deep See Survey, Shoreham 

2024 Water Surrounds Us, Antipodes Book Shop, Sorrento 

2019 Kovil, Surf Turf, Kovalam, India
2019 Astoria, Sienne Store, Kolkata, India 

2019 Solas, Kau And Co, Thornbury 

2018 Lady Lines, Kau And Co, Thornbury 

2017 Nature Has Its Ways, The goodness Bureau, Thornbury 

 

GROUP SHOWS
 

2025 The Deep See Survey Season 25/26 Group Show, Deep See Survey, Shoreham  

2025 Current, Lander–Se, Red Hill 

2025 Jump Cuts, Moores Building Art Space, Fremantle

2025 Wide Open space, Deep See Survey, Shoreham

2024 The Deep See Survey Season 24/25 Group Show, Deep See Survey, Shoreham  

2024 Scape, Lander—Se, Red Hill

2023 Art Redhill, Red Hill 

2023 One Last Dip, Stoker Studio, Mornington 

2022 O_C_E_A_N Floating Gallery, Drift Arts Festival, Pt Leo

2020 Season 2020 Group Show, Hideaway, Sri Lanka 

2019 Flinders Art Show, Flinders  

2019 Art Red Hill, Red Hill 

 

ARTS FACILITATION

2025 LanderSe, Red Hill

2024 McCelland, Langwarrin 

2024 - 25 Deep See Survey, Shoreham

2022 - 24 Stoker Studio, Mornington 

2024 Flinders Fridge, Flinders 

2023 Drift Art Festival, Mornington Peninsula

2022 Flinders Fridge, Flinders 

2020 The Kip, Sri Lanka 

2019 Silver Leaf Artbox, Merricks
 

 

COMMISIONS & COLLABORATIONS  

 

2020 - 2025 Body Portraits 

2025 Trigger Brothers

2024 Swell Blades

2022 Sunbutter 

2021 - 2023 Surf Sisters 

 

RESIDENCIES 

 

2025 Camillo House, Blairgowrie

2024 Boketto, Brooms Head  

2019 Saly Swamis, Arugaum Bay, Sri Lanka
2019 Sienne Store, Kolkata, India 

2018 The F Project, Warrnambool