About the artist.

Tianna McIntosh (b. 2001) is an emerging artist based in Leeds who graduated from the University of Leeds with a First-Class B.A in Fine Art. Working primarily in painting of the expanded form, her practice is rooted firmly in the process of automatic drawing.

Inspired by Surrealist sentiment, she veers away from figuration and tangible subject matter, beginning each piece with little to no premeditation, being influenced primarily by instinct, affect and a compulsive fascination with the exploration of automated processes.

Held central to her way of practicing is a belief in the art-making process being a playful, inherently revelatory one. Utilising dense, sporadic, idiosyncratic mark making and toying with stream-of-consciousness text, she retrospectively examines and identifies her anxieties, concerns, fixations, and preoccupations principally pertaining to her identity as a member of the Caribbean diaspora, all factors which bear subconscious influence over the form and nature of her line.

Tianna has work held in both public and private collections and has frequently exhibited work in and around the city, having shown work at The Mill Gallery, Serf, Central Square, East Street Arts, and Hyde Park Book Club among other locations. In 2023 she was awarded the University of Leeds’ head of school prize and was nominated on their behalf for the national Freelands Painting. In 2024 she completed her tenure as one of Serf studios’ graduate artists in residence, and since 2025 has partaken in Aire Place Studios’ Resilient Artist mentorship programme.

When she is not painting, drawing, or print-making she likes to spend her time scouring charity shops for compact discs and making jewellery for herself and her loved ones.

You can keep up with Tianna's work by following her Instagram.