About
Leah Raintree is an artist based in Richmond, VA and Brooklyn, NY. Her practice engages the interconnection between humanity, time, and the Earth.
Raintree works through an experimental drawing practice that spans media, treating the process of mark-making as a form of attentive translation: exploring how time, memory, and phenomenon are inscribed within the planet.
Raintree grew up on a small farm in rural Virginia, returning to early experiences of “touching earth” as a generative act that informs her practice. She often integrates site-specific materials directly into projects, treating the Earth, time, and matter not only as subjects, but as active participants in the work. Her practice also involves collaboration with scientific and cultural institutions, bringing these dialogues into conversation with her interests in ecology, embodiment, and repair. By developing projects through porous and interdisciplinary inquiry, Raintree considers how we might live more responsively in time and with the Earth.
Process and material experimentation are vital to Raintree’s approach as an artist. Projects unfold across media, expanding her drawing process alongside the histories and material conditions of print-making, photography, textiles, and ceramics.
This cross-disciplinary exploration stems from her interest in human artifacts that reveal how the Earth’s history and human storytelling are deeply intertwined. Raintree often works with materials sourced directly from the environment, allowing the properties of stone, sediments, and ash to transform her projects, bringing chance and material agency to the forefront of her process.
Raintree’s recent work is made urgent by climate change. Her project Legible Earth, is a series conceptualized in “chapters” that record ongoing histories on a rapidly changing planet. Legible Earth: Script and Legible Earth: Score engage the collection at Columbia University’s Lamont Doherty Core Repository, producing artworks using deep ocean sediments from the Arctic and Antarctic regions used by scientists in the study of ice sheet loss. Her current work Legible Earth: The Fire Tapestries, addresses the impacts of wildfire on ecological and human communities, utilizing char collected from Raintree’s sister who lost her home in the Valley Fire in 2015 and reflects upon the acceleration of wildfires over the subsequent decade.
Artist Biography & CV
Leah Raintree (b.1979) has exhibited with cultural and academic institutions such as the Noguchi Museum (Queens, NY), High Line Art (New York, NY), and the Staniar Gallery at Washington & Lee University (Lexington, VA). She has held four solo exhibitions with Reynolds Gallery (Richmond, VA), and has been awarded numerous grants and fellowships including from Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Workspace and Process Space (New York, NY), Frans Masereel Centrum (Belgium), the Banff Centre (Canada), and the Lower East Side Printshop (New York, NY). Raintree holds a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University and an MFA from Parsons School of Design.
Raintree lives in Richmond, VA with her husband and son, and maintains a studio in Brooklyn, NY.
Leah Raintree
b.1979
Education
MFA, 2012, Parsons, the New School for Design, New York, NY, Visual Art
BFA, 2003, Virginia Commonwealth University - Richmond, VA, Painting and Art History, Sculpture Minor
Select Exhibitions
2025
Leah Raintree: The Fire Tapestries, Piedmont Arts, Martinsville, VA (solo, forthcoming)
Leah Raintree: Legible Earth, Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, Richmond, VA (solo, forthcoming)
Blaze, Smolder, Char: Marieken Cochius, Dennis Lee Mitchell, Leah Raintree, Sohn Fine Art, Lenox, MA
Leah Raintree: Legible Earth, Reynolds Gallery, Richmond, VA (solo)
2024
Post Post-Human, BravinLee Programs, New York, NY
2022
Leah Raintree: Timekeepers, Reynolds Gallery, Richmond, VA (solo)
Leah Raintree: the landscape is not still, Staniar Gallery, W&L University, Lexington, VA (solo)
Fragile Rainbow: Traversing Habitats, Williamsburg Art & Historical Center, Brooklyn, NY
Summer Show, Reynolds Gallery, Richmond, VA
2020
Leah Raintree: the landscape is not still, Reynolds Gallery, Richmond, VA (solo)
The Edge Effect, Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, NY
Leah Raintree, JDJ: The Ice House, Garrison, NY
2018
How to Flatten a Mountain, PhotoIreland Foundation, Dublin, Ireland
Another Land: After Noguchi, The Noguchi Museum, Queens, NY (solo)
Traverse, William Holman Gallery, New York, NY
2015
EAF15: Artist Fellowship Exhibition, Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, NY
Edge Effects, King Street Gallery, Montgomery College, Silver Spring, MD (two-person)
Soft Eyes, Whitespace Gallery, Atlanta, GA
an other land, and in the other, our own, Prosjektrom Normanns, Stavanger, Norway
2014
Pier 54, High Line Art, New York, NY
Matter to Scale, Peninsula Art Space, Brooklyn, NY
Fluid, Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Staten Island, NY
2013
Rising Waters, Museum of the City of New York, New York, NY
Pleinairism, Walter Phillips Gallery, The Banff Centre, Banff, Canada
Along the Lines, Homage to Richard Long, Glasshouse, Brooklyn, NY
2012
American Landscape, FiveMyles, Brooklyn, NY
The New Brutalists, Parallel Art Space, Queens, NY
The Child Alberta Said Red, The Banff Centre, Banff, Canada
...Is This Free?, NURTUREart, Brooklyn, NY
Everything is Index, Nothing is History, The Invisible Dog Art Center, Brooklyn, NY
Not Wanting to Say Anything About John Cage, The Skybridge Art & Sound Space, New York, NY
2011
No One is an Island, LMCC’s Art Center on Governors Island, New York, NY
Prix Canson pour l’Art et du Papier 2011, Paris, France
Stone’s Throw, Hunter College Gallery, New York, NY (two-person)
2009
Operable Chambers and Other Biological Fictions, Foley Gallery, New York, NY
Involuntary Action, Reynolds Gallery, Richmond, VA (solo)
2008
Rococo: the Continuing Curve, 1730 – 2008, Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum - New York, NY
Artists at Rocky Mountain National Park, Moraine Park Museum - Estes Park, CO
2007
Per Square Foot, Dieu Donné – New York, NY
Project to Surface, m127 Gallery – New York, NY
Let’s Bolt!, CSV Cultural Center – New York, NY
Summer Show, Reynolds Gallery – Richmond, VA
The Drawing Room, VCU Fine Arts Gallery – Richmond, VA
Artist Residencies, Fellowships and Awards
The Visual Arts Center of Richmond, Studio Access Residency, Richmond, VA, 2025
Lower East Side Printshop, Keyholder Residency, New York, NY, 2022-23
Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, The Arts Center Residency on Governors Island, New York, NY, 2019-2020
The Banff Centre, Winter BAiR (Banff Artist-in-Residence), Banff, Canada, 2019
Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Ceramics in a Transdisciplinary Studio, Newcastle, ME, 2018
Cowhouse Studio Residency, How to Flatten A Mountain, Dublin, Ireland, 2018
Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Emergency Grant, New York, NY, 2016
Socrates Sculpture Park, Emerging Artist Fellowship 2015, Queens, NY
Marble House Project, The Quarry Residency, Dorset, VT
Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Process Space, New York, NY, 2014
Frans Masereel Centrum, Kasterlee, BE, 2014
Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Workspace, New York, NY, 2013 - 2014
New York University, Visiting Artist, Department of Art and Art Professions, New York, NY, 2012 - 2013
The Banff Centre, A PAPER A DRAWING A MOUNTAIN with Silke Otto-Knapp & Jan Verwoert, Banff, CA, 2012
Mildred’s Lane, Beach Lake, PA, 2011
Atlantic Center for the Arts with Jean-Marc Bustamante, New Smyrna Beach, FL, 2010
Artist Talks
Leah Raintree: Legible Earth, Reynolds Gallery, Richmond, VA 2025
Leah Raintree: Experimental Drawing, Lafayette College, Easton, PN, 2024
Leah Raintree: the landscape is not still, Stainair Gallery, W&L University, Lexington, VA 2020
The Landscape of Deep Time: Zhang Hongtu and Leah Raintree, Rutgers University EchoArt Salon, 2020
Another Land: Noguchi & Imaging Space in the Anthropocene, The Noguchi Museum, Queens NY, 2015
Edge Effects: Christine Howard Sandoval & Leah Raintree, Montgomery College, Silver Springs MD, 2015
Select Bibliography
Roniger, Taney, “You Are Therefore I Am: From Dualism to Allocentrism (and What Any of It Has To Do With Art)” Interalia Magazine, January, 2022
Hart, Dakin, “Leah Raintree: Another Land After Noguchi” The Noguchi Museum, 2016 (exhibition catalog)
Roniger, Taney, “Leah Raintree: Another Land: After Noguchi” The Brooklyn Rail, Dec 6 ,2016
Nunes, Andrew, “Celestial Photography” Creators Project, Sept 3, 2016
Coon, Ella, “Becoming the 4th Dimension: Leah Raintree at Noguchi Museum” NYAQ, Aug 25, 2016
Asboe, Eric, “From the Road: Slow Heat” Bad At Sports, Aug 18, 2015
Rosenberg, Karen, "Pier 54" The New York Times, Dec 4, 2014
"The Child Alberta," Ed. David Giordano, Silke Otto-Knapp, Charlie Satterlee, Mitch Speed, and Jan Verwoert, Banff: The Banff Centre and Vancouver: Setup, Issue 3.5, Summer 2013
D’Agostino, Paul, “The New Brutalists: Not So Brutal,” The L Magazine, Nov 7, 2012
Kress, Melanie and Natalie Bell, “Everything Is Index, Nothing Is History,” Exhibition catalog to accompany exhibition presented by Recession Art at the Invisible Dog, May 2012
Panetta, Jane and Veronica Roberts, “(RE)PURPOSE,” May 2012
Schultz, Charlie, “MFA Thesis Shows: Columbia and Parsons,” ARTSlant New York, Reviews and Critic’s Pick
Behm-Steinberg, Hugh, Eleven Eleven Issue 9, California College of the Arts, Summer 2010
Clarke, Daniel, Feature Article, Niche Magazine, February 2010, pp. 42 – 51
Cofré, Ian, “Constructed Forms” culturehall Feature Issue 37, February 2010
Hegardt, Bjørn, “In Focus”, FUKT a magazine for contemporary drawing, Issue 8/9, June 2010
“More Simple, More Fun” Limited Edition Catalog with Jean-Marc Bustamante, Atlantic Center for the Arts, March 2010
Peck, Derek, “Leah Raintree: Mind and Matter”, Planet Magazine, August 2009
“Leah Raintree – Excerpts / The Incredible Machine”, suckerPUNCH, August 2009
Coffin, Sara D., “Rococo: The Continuing Curve”, 1730-2008, Assouline, 2008, pp. 242 – 245
“Leah Raintree – Operable Chambers”, suckerPUNCH, April 2008
Ha, Jihae, “Project to Surface”, Interior World, Volume 60, pp. 188 – 191, 2007
“Review”, The Architects Newspaper, June 2007, p. 38, 2007
Sokol, David, “Higher Planes”, Surface Magazine – Annual Design Issue, May 2007, pp. 92-94