Recently returning to study, Ilga completed a PgCert (Postgraduate Certificate Academic Practice in Art, Design and Communication) at the University of the Arts London (2022) earning an FHEA (Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy) and currently pursuing an MA in Academic Practice in Art, Design and Communication. Current research interests include idea generation, ethics of care, and transformational pedagogy.

Born and raised in Montreal she began her studies in Fine Art at Dawson College, followed by one year Arts Plastiques at UQAM (Université du Québec à Montréal) before moving to Riga to study at the Art Academy of Latvia, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting (1995) under the guidance of professors Indulis Zariņš and Aleksejs Naumovs.

Ilga continued her studies at Concordia University with a BFA (with distinction) in Art History (1999) and a Master of Arts (2004) Thesis supervisors included Dr Loren Lerner and Lee Plotek.

Ilga is engaged in transformational learning through drawing. She has combined the teaching of basic drawing skills and visual literacy, with a process-led form of iterative drawing used as a tool for generating ideas.

Associate Lecturer, Academic Support, University of the Arts London, UK.

Thinking Through Drawing – weekly university-wide Idea Generation and sketching workshops.

Ilga also teaches Drawing for Production Design, Third Year BA and MA Film Practice, London College of Communication, University of the Arts London.

Consultancy and workshops

Ilga has been invited to consult and deliver drawing and creativity workshops for a broad range of students and professionals, including architects, urban planners, public sector practitioners, engineers, design students, portfolio preparation students, school children, teachers and pedagogy students.

Partners include: ACG International (China), Advatera (Austria), Art Academy of Latvia, Bath Spa University, BDP London, Beijing Anostar Education (Shanghai and Beijing, China), the Building Centre, Cobourg Primary School, Dulwich Picture Gallery, Future of London, H2E Design Studio (Latvia), Mammoth Brand (N. Ireland), Mayvin Ltd, Pringle Richards Sharratt Architects, University College London, University of Latvia, Vogt Landscape Architects…

RAS (Retain, Achieve, Succeed) Researcher, University of the Arts London (2015-17)

Together with colleague Chris Koning at the University of the Arts London, we researched the question of access to drawing skills, and their impact on developing confidence, communication and creativity.

Retain, Achieve Succeed Research was presented at the iJADE Conference 2016: Drawing (University of Chester, Chester, UK) and the European Access Network Conference 2016, (University College Dublin, Ireland.)

Short Course Tutor, Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London (2007 - present)

Teaching drawing, idea generation and portfolio preparation short courses since 2007; online courses since 2014; developed summer schools for teenagers since 2009; delivers bespoke training for professionals (architects and engineers) special events workshops for example, for the Affordable Art Fair London and London Design Festival.

Drawing Tutor, Drawing At Work, London, UK (2006-17)

Ilga helped develop and delivered a manual skills drawing programme for architects and engineers. She has taught at leading offices in London, working with over 200 architects at Foster+Partners also among others: Kohn Pedersen Fox, MAKE, Pilbrow & Partners, Shepherd Epstein Hunter, TTSP Architecture & Design, Adams Kara Taylor, Expedition Engineering, Asael, Desso, Jason Bruges Studio, ORMS Architecture.

2008-09 Ilga organised workshops for Drawing At Work and the Campaign for Drawing for the Big Draw launch events in Covent Garden and Spitalfields.

Ilga published her first book Sketching Perspective (The Crowood Press 2021) sharing her extensive teaching experience in observational drawing.

As Retain-Achieve-Succeed researchers at the University of The Arts London, together with Chris Koning we wrote two pieces of writing: a chapter in Inclusion and Intersectionality in Visual Arts Education (2019) and a Research Report (2017) at the end of the project.

Ilga contributed three chapters to Creative Sketching Workshop (2015) a book edited by Pete Scully, published by Apple Press (UK), North Light Books (North America) and Tan Yang International (Asia).

She has published an essay in Locus Suspectus (2006), a catalogue essay for Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University (2002) and a review in Canadian Art (2002).

Solo exhibitions

2020 Around and Around, Copper Beech Café, North Dulwich, London, UK

2019 Excess All Areas, Five Years, London, UK.

2017 Rooted in Limbo, Five Years, London, UK.

2009 Profiles: Friendship in the Digital Age, Gallery Istaba, with interdisciplinary seminar at e-text-textiles, Riga, Latvia.

Group exhibitions

2022 Ruins, exhibition curated by Anda Kļaviņa in Trapani, Sicily. (Catalogue)

2021 Kanāda Sērijās, Centre for Latvian Diaspora Art, Cēsis, Latvia.

2020 Aizsargmaskas (Masks), Gallery Istaba, Riga Latvia.

2019 Baltic Sketching Festival, Cesis, Latvia.

2014 Happy Birthday ISTABA!, 10th anniversary exhibition, Gallery Istaba, Riga, Latvia.

2014 Inaugural Exhibition, Centre for Latvian Diaspora Art, Cēsis, Latvia.

2013 Latvian Exile Art, Latvian National Museum of Art’s (LNMM) Arsenāls Exhibition Hall, Riga, Latvia.

2008 Diaspora Art Returns, Valmiera Regional Museum, Valmiera, Latvia. (Catalogue)

2005 Les Îles Inventées – Portraits, Maison de la culture Marie-Uguay, Montréal, Canada. (duo with A Katz)

2005 Faces and Transitions, Warren G. Flowers Gallery, Dawson College, Montréal, Canada. Curated by Giussepe Di Leo. (exhibition brochure)

Collaboration with sister Andra Kalnins (2021 - 22)

2022 sisters hope, [Exhibition] Five Years, London, UK. 26 February - 6 March 2022.

Dreaming Rivers Found Footage 2021 (DRFF21) is an independent virtual 16mm film research project hosted by not/nowhere.

Research participants include filmmaker Judah Attille; Somatic acting artist-researcher-educator, Christina Kapadocha; Artist, educator, author, researcher, Ilga Leimanis; Independent curator and writer, Taylor Le Melle with Filmmaker Ibrahim Kargbo; Artist-filmmaker, Rhea Storr. Presented jointly by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and Tate Britain, “Cutting Edge: Collage in Britain, 1945 to Now — Collage as Method, Manuscript and Moving Image” 7 October 2021.

MIDDplace – Mail Art collaboration with Diyan Achjadi, Melissa Manfull, and Doreen Wittenbols (2020-22)

2022 MIDDplace, [Exhibition] Elephant Art Space, Los Angeles, USA 4-30 April 2022.

Architecture of Conversation (2015 - ongoing) @architecture_of_conversation

London based collaborative design partnership established by Ilga Leimanis and Bidisha Sinha in 2015. Drawing from inter-disciplinary experience, AoC emerged as part of a series of conversations around the intuitive importance of the symbols of well-being within our everyday life and the wider public realm.

2020- Collaboration with architects ABHR_A (Alex Bilton and Helen Reid).

2018 Hong Kong, China – study silk painting - wearable art in the form of hand-painted silk scarves

2017 Peckham Festival Open Studios, London

2015 Bang Your Head: Architecture of Conversation, exhibition at Five Years, London, UK.

Ortelius Drew (2007-18) www.orteliusdrew.com @orteliusdrew

Ortelius Drew is a collaborative, mobile, and performative drawing project led by artists Doreen Wittenbols and Ilga Leimanis. Taking the city as their principle subject matter, they focus on public settings of leisure (gardens and parks), sites of temporary architecture as well as public museum collections. As present-day flâneurs, they move through the city establishing temporary, yet deeply empathetic and intimate relationships with all that they see – all the while conscious of both contemporary and historic gendering of public spaces.

solo exhibitions (Ortelius Drew)

2014 popUp & popOFF, flutter_, London, UK.

2012 A Plotted Affair, A Collaboration with Rochelle Fry, Five Years, London, UK.

2008 Take Off, Dokhuis Gallery, Amsterdam.

selected group exhibitions (Ortelius Drew)

2018 Art Unites, with Skuja Braden (I Skuja + M Braden), Centre for Latvian Diaspora Art, Cēsis, Latvia

2016 Ortelius Drew DOES Mail & Female, Sexplosion, Mail & Female, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

2013 Tekenkabinet, Kunstsalon Assen, Assen, The Netherlands

2013 Anonymous Drawings 2013, Galerie Nord/Kunstverein Tiergarten, Berlin, Germany

2011 Drawn Together, Siena Art Institute, Siena, Italy.

2010 The Moment of Privacy Has Passed, The Usher Gallery, Lincoln, UK.

2010 CUBEOpen Exhibition, Centre for the Urban Built Environment, Manchester, UK

2010 the open west 2010, The Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum (commissioned project: site-specific drawing installation), Cheltenham, UK. Curated by Lyn Cluer Coleman and Sarah Goodwin. (Catalogue

2009 Personally Political – Contemporary Sensation: Drawing, Art House Tacheles New Gallery, Berlin, Germany. Curated by Barbara Fragogna. (Catalogue)

selected projects and events (Ortelius Drew)

2018 ArtRooms Fair Roma and Ortelius Drew European Tour (3rd edition) Rome, Italy

2016 Ortelius Drew European Tour (2nd edition), Margate, UK.

2015 Ortelius Drew European Tour, Madrid, Spain.

2014 Another Plotted Affair, A Collaboration between Ortelius Drew, Rochelle Fry and Dr Astrida Neimanis, ZsaZsa Zine, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (publication postponed)

2012 Big Draw at Battersea Pumphouse Gallery, London, UK.

2012 Late Night Live: Draw, Turner Contemporary, Margate, Kent, UK.

2012 SUPERNORMAL festival, Braziers Park, Ipsden, Oxfordshire, UK.

2012 Cover image, PhaenEx, journal of existential and phenomenological theory and culture, vol 7, no. 1 (spring/summer 2012).

2010 Drawing DiverCITIES workshop with the Bartlett School of Planning MSc. Urban Regeneration students and local community groups, London, UK. (Ortelius Drew collaboration)

2008 Stichting Kanaal 10, residency, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Ortelius Drew works in private collections in the UK and The Netherlands.

Panel discussion moderated by art critic Anda Kļaviņa “Diskusija «Mākslas publiskajā telpā»” presented online Arterritory.com, 12 November, 2021. (in Latvian)

Facilitating Looking, Seeing, Communicating, Understanding and Sharing, Teaching Drawing Symposium 2. An online symposium convened by Drawing is Free & Drawing Projects UK in association with the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2020 exhibition - held on Friday 22 January from 3pm to 5pm (UK).

Art That Got Us Through 2020, panel discussion. Art critic Anda Klavina and curator Maija Rudovska invited speakers to share their Top 3 art experiences from 2020. Artists Daiga Grantina (Paris), Ilga Leimanis (London), curators Andris Brinkmanis (Milan) and Inga Lace (Riga) as well as art dealers Zane Grants Wolff (Geneva) and Olga Temnikova (Tallinn). Video recording on January 14, 2022.

Drawn in Peckham! Live drawing event on the rooftop of Bold Tendencies as part of the Peckham Festival, September 2021.

Founder of Drawn in London - location sketching group, locations include Serpentine Pavilions, Sky Garden 20 Fenchurch Street, Royal Opera House, Kenwood House, Wallace Collection among others, London, UK.