Celia Lees (b. 1996) is a Toronto-based abstract artist whose work is a visceral exploration of lived experience, memory, and the passage of time. Through large-scale, expressive paintings, she channels the emotional resonance of human connection, the fleeting currents of everyday life, and the textures of memory into vibrant, intuitive compositions. Rooted in the physicality of mark-making, her practice allows movement, emotion, and instinct to guide each gesture, offering viewers space to reflect, linger, and encounter the quiet intimacy of shared experience.
Celia holds a Bachelor of Design from Toronto Metropolitan University and worked in the fashion industry prior to her career in art, experiences that continue to inform her sensitivity to materiality, texture, and colour.
Her work is held in private collections across North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, and has been placed in prominent commercial spaces including 200 Amsterdam in New York, Aria in Las Vegas, and The Laurel in West Palm Beach.
CURRENTLY ON
September 2025 - When we Were Small at Bau-Xi Gallery, Toronto, Canada
September 2025 - Love All at Glass Rice Gallery, San Francisco, USA
UPCOMING
October 2025 - Art Toronto with Bau-Xi Gallery
October 2025 - SWAB art fair with Escat Gallery
CV
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2025 When We Were Small - Bau-Xi Gallery, Toronto, Canada
2024 LOVE LANGUAGE - Sugarlift Gallery, NYC USA
2023 Notes to Myself - And Now You - Cry Baby Gallery, Toronto Canada
2022 Solo - Cry Baby Gallery, Toronto Canada
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025 Love All - Glass Rice Gallery, San Francisco, USA
2025 Summer Show - Bau- Xi Gallery, Toronto, Canada
2025 Group Show - Material, Berlin Art Week, Berlin, Germany
2025 Homebody- Two Faced Gallery in Collaboration with Tacit Collective, Los Angeles, USA
2025 Negative 25 - 11 Contemporary Art Centre, Shenzhen China
2025 Ways to Love - Northern Contemporary, Toronto, Canada
2024 Tales of Women - Tang Contemporary, Hong Kong, China
2024 Secret Garden - 11 Contemporary Art Centre, Shenzhen China
2024 Fragments of Thought - PWD Gallery, Kitchener, Canada
2024 No Mans Land - Cry Baby Gallery presented by Tacit, Toronto Canada
2023 Wavelengths - Abbozzo Gallery, Toronto Canada
2022 Arta Gallery, Toronto, Canada
RESIDENCIES
2024 Nocefresca - Milis, Sardinia Italy
2023 NG Creative Art Residency - Maussane Les Alpilles France
2022 Find Arcana - Creative Retreat - Ontario Canada
FAIRS
2024 SCOPE Art Show Miami - Crybaby Gallery
2024 Art Shenzhen - 11 Contemporary Art Centre
2023 Foundations Online Art Fair - Curated by Artsy
2023 Artist Project, Toronto Canada
INSTRUCTIONAL
2021- Present - Top Artist on Instructional Painting platform ARIE