Contemporary Artist
Lea Langley
Drawing · Space · Installation
01 – Selected Project
Dark Matter
An investigation into invisible forces, negative space and the point at which drawing moves beyond the surface of paper and begins to occupy physical space.
01.1 — Research
Invisible Forces
How do you draw something that cannot be seen?
The project began with an exploration of forces that are understood through their effects rather than through direct visibility. Line, movement and density became ways of suggesting energy acting upon space.
01.2 — Research
Negative Space
The investigation shifted from what could not be seen to what was deliberately left unmade.
By drawing around familiar forms rather than describing them directly, absence began to acquire its own shape, presence and visual weight. Empty space became an active part of the image.
01.3 — Research
Liminal Spaces
From the space surrounding an object, the enquiry moved towards spaces that exist between destinations.
Stairways, corridors, entrances and waiting areas became subjects because of their transitional nature. These spaces are familiar, yet when emptied of people and purpose they can become uncertain, quiet and strangely suspended.
01.4 — Development
Drawing in Space
The line began to leave the page.
Thread became line. Charcoal became mark. The surrounding room became part of the drawing itself.
Suspending fragments in space allowed the work to change according to viewpoint. Instead of being encountered from one fixed position, the drawing could now be experienced through movement.
01.5 — Experimentation
Testing the Work
The installation developed through repeated experimentation with tension, position, density, light and shadow.
Individual fragments initially appear scattered and disconnected. Their relationship only becomes apparent when the viewer moves through the space and discovers particular lines of sight.
01.6 — Process
Making Dark Matter
The act of making became physical: measuring, suspending, adjusting and repeatedly stepping back to understand how the work behaved in the room.
01.7 — Final Installation
Dark Matter
2026
Dark Matter developed from an investigation into invisible forces, negative space and the relationship between drawing and physical space.
Suspended fragments of charcoal form marks along almost invisible lines, extending drawing beyond the surface of paper and into the surrounding environment.
The work changes as the viewer moves around it. From most positions the fragments appear independently throughout the space; from a particular viewpoint they begin to align into a concentrated spiral.
What appears solid is largely empty. Line, shadow, distance and the spaces between individual fragments become as significant as the charcoal itself.
Dark Matter in Motion
Moving-image documentation of Dark Matter, recording how the work shifts and re-forms as the viewer changes position.
Recognition
Award
Best Achievement in Fine Art Practice
Awarded in recognition of the development and presentation of Dark Matter.
Practice
Between Things
My practice explores what exists between the things we usually notice: the space surrounding an object, the invisible force acting upon it, the corridor between destinations, and the distance between one mark and another.
Drawing is often the starting point, but increasingly the line moves beyond paper and into physical space. Through installation, charcoal, thread, light and shadow, I am interested in how a viewer's position can alter what is seen and how separate elements can temporarily become one image.
02 — Where It All Began
Where It All Began
I have always been artistic, but I was not always an artist. After surviving breast cancer, I made the decision that I wanted to become a full-time artist. It was not an immediate transition; it took five years to finally reach the point where I could begin pursuing art seriously.
These drawings belong to that beginning. Architecture and the places around me became my subjects, allowing me to develop patience, observation and confidence through detailed mark-making. Looking back, they represent more than the buildings themselves; they mark the point at which art began to move from something I loved into something I wanted to build my life around.
02.1 — THE ARCHES
The Arches
Ink drawing
This was my first architectural drawing, and the beginning of what would become a lasting fascination with buildings, structures and the spaces they create.
I wanted to capture the sheer scale of the railway arches that cut through the centre of Todmorden like a great stone spine. While drawing them, I often found myself thinking about the men who built them, working without the machinery we have today and raising something so enormous, stone by stone.
There is something more personal here too. Through this particular arch is the road towards Lancashire and the place where I was born. Passing beneath this side of the bridge has always carried a familiar feeling; depending on which direction I am travelling, it tells me that I am either leaving home or coming back to it.
02.2 — THE OLD BANK
The Old Bank
Ink drawing
Sitting at a point where the streets of Hebden Bridge seem to fork around it, The Old Bank is a building I had passed many times without really stopping to look at.
For such a beautiful and detailed building, it has always seemed strangely quiet to me. Perhaps it is because of the landscape surrounding it. The hills rise so dramatically behind the town that even a building as ornate as this can somehow appear small.
Curiously, I tend to notice it most when travelling through Hebden Bridge by car. For a moment it sits directly ahead, framed by the streets splitting away on either side, before disappearing again as you pass it.
Drawing it made me stop and properly look at something that had always been there, but which I had never really seen.
02.3 — THE TOWN HALL
The Town Hall
Ink drawing
Todmorden Town Hall has dominated the centre of the town for as long as I can remember. Even as a child, it seemed enormous compared with everything surrounding it, almost like the godfather of the town, quietly watching over the streets below.
Designed by John Gibson and opened in 1875, the building has an unusual relationship with place. It was built across Walsden Water, which once marked the boundary between Lancashire and Yorkshire, meaning the Town Hall originally stood in two counties at once.
This drawing began with a photograph I had taken looking upwards towards the curved end of the building. I wanted the perspective to exaggerate the feeling I had always had when standing beside it, its height, weight and sheer presence.
It was also the first time I introduced colour into one of my architectural drawings. The red post box felt just as important to me as the building itself, a small point of familiarity and scale beside something so monumental.
02.4 — THE MILL
The Mill
Ink drawing
The Mill sits at the heart of Hebden Bridge, beside St George’s Square, a place where people gather outside cafés and pubs and where the sound of street musicians often fills the centre of the town.
A mill has stood on this site for centuries, long before Hebden Bridge developed into the town that surrounds it today. Its purpose has changed over time, yet the building remains firmly rooted in the life of the town.
What first attracted me to the building were its angles. From this viewpoint, the corner seems to push forward while the streets lead away on either side. Behind it, the houses climb the hillside at different heights and angles, while the tall chimney draws the eye upwards. There is a sense of everything moving in different directions, yet somehow fitting together.
As with my earlier drawings, I used small areas of red to interrupt the black ink, giving the eye somewhere to settle amongst all those lines.
02.5 — A CLIMB THROUGH COLOUR
A Climb Through Colour
Ink and coloured pen drawing
This drawing began with a stairway that I felt had been overlooked. Rather than drawing the space exactly as I found it, I began to imagine what it might become if it were allowed to grow into something else.
I filled the stairway with flowers and greenery, gradually introducing far more colour than I had used in my previous architectural drawings. Against the black and white buildings, the colour began to change the feeling of the space.
I was also drawn to the staircase itself. It leads the eye upwards through the centre of the drawing, disappearing between the buildings and continuing towards the houses above.
Looking back, this was also one of the first times I moved away from simply recording a place as it existed. I was beginning to use drawing to imagine how a space might feel rather than only how it looked.
02.6 — REFLECTION
Looking Back
At the time, these drawings were simply a way for Lea to capture buildings and places that caught her attention.
Looking back, there was already an interest in more than the architecture itself; the spaces between buildings, the directions they lead, their scale, their lines, and the experience of moving amongst them.
There was no particular destination in mind. She was simply drawing what interested her.
Perhaps this really was where it all began.
03 — URBAN ECHOES
Urban Echoes
Urban Echoes is a trilogy exploring Manchester through its architecture, culture and identity. The series began with the buildings themselves, but quickly became about what happens around them; the music, nightlife, communities and histories that give the city its character.
Each piece begins with architectural imagery, built up through screenprint, collage, paint, pen and chalk. Layers overlap and interrupt one another, much like the city itself, where different periods, cultures and experiences exist alongside each other.
The final screenprinted layer is applied to acetate, bringing the architecture back across the surface of each work. Buildings become the structure holding everything together, while the layers beneath them reveal something of the life taking place within and around them.
03.1 — URBAN ECHOES I
Urban Echoes I
Mixed media
Manchester's relationship with music became the starting point for this piece. Rather than focusing on a single band or period, I wanted the work to feel like fragments of the city's musical history colliding with one another.
Newspaper clippings, musicians, typography and architectural forms are layered together, while the figure of the guitarist seems to emerge from the city itself. The buildings remain recognisable, but they become part of something louder and more energetic.
For me, this piece is about the way music becomes attached to place. Certain buildings, streets and venues carry memories long after the sound itself has disappeared.
03.2 — URBAN ECHOES II
Urban Echoes II
Mixed media
This piece looks towards another side of Manchester, its nightlife, Pride and LGBTQ+ culture.
Against the darker cityscape, the rainbow colours deliberately refuse to disappear into the architecture. They spill down the building, bringing something bold and celebratory into an otherwise restrained image.
I wanted the contrast to feel important. The city at night can appear dark and imposing, yet within it are places where people find community, freedom and a space to be themselves. Here, colour becomes almost like a presence of its own, occupying the building rather than simply decorating it.
03.3 — URBAN ECHOES III
Urban Echoes III
Mixed media
The final work turns towards Manchester's industrial past and the structures that have shaped the city.
Railways, bridges, warehouses, newspaper fragments and the worker bee overlap across the image. I was interested in bringing together different periods of Manchester rather than presenting its history chronologically. The past sits amongst the present, appearing in fragments through buildings, symbols and remnants of movement.
The bee appears repeatedly as a symbol of Manchester's identity and its history of industry and collective work. Like the other pieces in Urban Echoes, the architecture provides the framework, but the story of the city exists in the layers around it.
About
Lea Langley
Lea Langley is a contemporary artist working across drawing, mixed media and installation.
Her developing practice investigates line, spatial relationships, negative space and the experience of moving through an artwork. Drawing remains central to the process, functioning both as a finished medium and as a way of researching ideas that later move into three-dimensional space.
Selected Work
More Work, Coming Soon
Lea's practice continues to develop across drawing, mixed media and installation. A growing selection of works and ongoing projects will be added here as the practice evolves.
New work currently in development.
Contact
Get in touch
For exhibition enquiries, collaborations, artwork enquiries or general correspondence: