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Ludi Leiva’s dreamlike works move between landscape, memory and the subconscious, creating imagined worlds in which figures and natural forms appear to drift into one another.
Working across monotype and painting, Leiva creates atmospheric compositions that feel at once intimate and otherworldly. Mountains, trees, bodies and pools of colour emerge through translucent layers, forming landscapes that seem remembered rather than directly observed. With their softened forms and shifting perspectives, her works capture the elusive quality of dreams: familiar yet indistinct, suspended between recognition and uncertainty.
Memory is central to Leiva’s practice. Drawing upon the mountain landscapes of her childhood, her family’s Guatemalan and Slovak heritage, and the natural environment surrounding her home in Sweden, she brings together places separated by geography and time. These different landscapes become intertwined within the work, creating spaces in which personal history, ancestry and imagination coexist. The recurring female figure is often absorbed into her surroundings, blurring the distinction between body and landscape and questioning where the self ends and the natural world begins.
Leiva works intuitively, allowing the qualities of each material to guide the development of an image. In her monotypes on paper, pigment is transferred through a process that balances intention with unpredictability. Subtle variations in pressure, water and surface mean that the final image can never be entirely controlled. This element of surrender gives the works their fluidity: colours bleed into one another, figures dissolve at their edges and unexpected marks become part of the composition.
More recently, Leiva has extended this visual language onto canvas. Working with oil and watercolour, she builds luminous surfaces through veils of colour and expressive, instinctive mark-making. The greater scale and physicality of canvas allow her imagined landscapes to unfold more expansively, while retaining the delicacy and quiet ambiguity of her works on paper. Across both mediums, Leiva approaches materials as collaborators, responding to each image as it emerges rather than imposing a predetermined conclusion.
Dreams provide a further source of imagery. Leiva has kept a dream journal for many years, recording the unusual landscapes, encounters and altered geographies that remain with her upon waking. Rather than illustrating these experiences literally, she draws upon their atmosphere and emotional residue. The resulting works occupy a liminal space between the internal and external worlds, inviting viewers into scenes shaped as much by feeling as by place.
Ludi Leiva (b. 1990) is a Canadian-American artist of Guatemalan and Slovak heritage who lives and works in Stockholm. She holds an MFA in Visual Communication from Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design and completed a one-year programme at the Royal Drawing School, London. In 2024, Leiva received a working grant from the Swedish Arts Grants Committee. She has exhibited internationally in London, Stockholm, New York, Chicago and Mogadishu. Recent presentations include RHODES Editions at Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair in 2025 and What the Surface Holds at RHODES in 2026. Leiva also participated in the Turps Summer Intensive and its concluding exhibition at Turps Gallery, London, in 2026.
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Works
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Mälaren, Early Spring, 2026Sold -
Mist Willows, 2026Sold
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Late August, 2026Sold
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Towards Plum Creek, 2026Sold
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Badviken Sunset, 2026Sold
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Last Light, 2026Sold
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Pacifica, 2026Sold
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The Field, 2026Sold
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Under Your Watch, 2026Sold
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Blue Daffodils, 2025Sold
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Fårö Sunset, 2025
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Dreaming of the Valley, 2025
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Exhibitions
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News
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RHODES Editions Monotypes at London Original Print Fair 2026
At the RHODES Editions LOPF26 Stand, we will be presenting a selection of new monotypes from six artists. April 23, 2026Alongside our releases of Screenprints and Archival Pigment Prints, RHODES Editions has worked with six artists to create a range of new monotypes. These include...Read more -
New works from Ludi Leiva
A series of new monoprints are available through RHODES March 19, 2026RHODES is proud to present a new series of delicate monoprints on paper by Ludi Leiva . Dreamlike and luminous, these new works are made...Read more
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