Kendall-Leigh Nash was born in South Africa in 1989. She graduated with a BA in Fine Art from Rhodes University in 2011, where she was mentored in drawing by acclaimed South African artist and printmaker Diane Victor. Nash has worked in both photography and fine art. Her photographic experience has had a lasting influence on her drawings, particularly in her use of tonal contrast, composition and closely cropped viewpoints. Many works begin with photographs taken while she is outdoors, sometimes during a deliberate search for a subject and sometimes after an unexpected encounter with an animal, plant or unusual pattern of light. Back in the studio, these references are reimagined in graphite and charcoal. Nash does not simply reproduce what she has photographed. She combines natural subjects and invents new relationships between them, creating detailed worlds that sit between scientific observation and the imagination. Her earlier work often focused on portraiture and the relationship between people, animals and the environment. As her practice developed, wildlife and botanical subjects moved increasingly to the foreground. Birds, primates, insects and plant life now appear within compositions that explore symbiosis, ecological vulnerability and the need for greater care towards the living world.
Nash’s drawings are created slowly, using graphite, charcoal, pastel and erasure to build light, texture and form. Recent creative exchanges with artist Jono Dry have encouraged an even more patient and technically precise approach. Despite their realism, her works retain a dreamlike quality: individual species are brought together in imagined encounters that reveal broader truths about connection and survival.
Her work has appeared in exhibitions across the Western Cape, including The Art of Birds and Out of the Box at Noordhoek Art Point, Fijn at Rossouw Modern, and exhibitions with the Cape Fine Art Collective at Kirstenbosch. She has also participated in several StateoftheART exhibitions, including Beneath the Skin, Spring and Paper Tale. Nash was a finalist in the Tollman Bouchard Finlayson Tondo Competition at the Hermanus FynArts Festival in 2017 and a finalist in the Drawing Guild’s Degrees of Realism competition.
Through her finely observed drawings, Nash gives visual form to the relationships that connect animals, plants and ecosystems. Her work asks us to look beyond individual species and recognise the shared world on which all life depends.
Selected Exhibitions:
2026
Group exhibition ROOTED at StateoftheART, Stanford, Western Cape
2024
Group exhibition at Noordhoek Art Point, Cape Town. ‘The Art of Birds’, August
Group exhibition at Kirstenbosch Gardens, Cape Fine Art collective, April.
Group exhibition at Noordhoek Art Point, Cape Town. ‘Out of the Box’, April.
Group exhibition at State of the Art Gallery, Cape Town. ‘Paper Tale’, February.
Group exhibition at Kirstenbosch, Cape Fine Art collective, January.
2023
Group exhibition at Kirstenbosch, Cape Fine Art collective, December.
Group exhibition at Noordhoek Art Point, Cape Town. ‘Blooming Marvellous’, October.
Group exhibition at Rossouw Modern, Hermanus. ‘Fijn’ group show, September.
Group exhibition, SPACE Modern, Hermanus. ‘GBV’ group show, March.
2021
Group exhibition, Art@Africa, ‘Whalesong’, Hermanus.
Group exhibition, Art@Africa, ‘On thin Ice’, Cape Town
Participant in the ‘This is Art’ art expo’, CTICC, Cape Town
Group exhibition, SASA Members Exhibition, Kirstenbosch.
2022
Group exhibition, Finalist for ‘Degrees of Realism’ competition, Drawing Guild, Johannesburg,
October.
2021
Expo, This is Art expo, CTICC in Cape Town, November
Group exhibition, Art @ Africa, Hermanus. ‘Whalesong’ group show, September.
Group exhibition, SASA Members exhibition, Kirstenbosch.
Group exhibition, Finalist for ‘Degrees of Realism’ competition, Drawing Guild, Johannesburg.
2017
Finalist in Tollman Bouchard Finalyson, tondo art competition, 'Reflections',
Hermanus Fynarts Festival.
Group Exhibition, 'Monuments', Taj Hotel, Cape Town
Group Exhibition, 'Spring', StateoftheART gallery, Cape Town
2016
Group Exhibition 'Beneath The Skin', StateoftheART, Cape Town
2014
Group Exhibition “Drawing the Line”, Art B gallery in Belville.
2013
Members Group Exhibition at Art B gallery in Belville.
Publications & Media:
2016:
Southern Vines magazine feature, Pg.25
State of the Art Gallery : Online Artist’s feature
2021:
Drawing Guild: Artist’s feature
Awards:
2017 finalist in Tollman Bouchard Finlayson, tondo art competition;
‘Reflections’
