About 

2026 Heartland @ Montsalvat Exhibition 
2019 Hinterland - Tacit Art

Every five years or so I feel the need to stop and reassess what I am doing. My  painting style is deconstructed and re-examined. These are my ‘greener pasture’ moments, where I feel I have evolved as a painter and moved on to take on new challenges and approaches to landscape painting.

My solo exhibition in association with Tacit Art in 2019 referred to the almost forgotten world of rural communities and their seeming decline.

In 2025, I have embarked on portraying my own version of the Australian landscape based on my wife and her family’s experiences growing up on the land near Warrnambool, and my own family’s hard experiences in the Riverina of southern NSW.

My coastal works hark back to childhood memories of the sea where beaches were within easy reach for us growing up in Sydney. Whenever I’m in Sydney, I often visit the coves beaches and rock pools of Coogee and Bondi. 

In recent years, I take a more wholistic approach and where the landscapes are planned out and have become more panoramic and expansive than before. I use the panorama to highlight where things sit in aerial perspective, and where curves, shapes and horizons meet and collide. In both the coastal and riverine pictures, there is a feeling of the power of water, such as the surly dark green seas I create or the dangerous pull of a fast brown river.

Skies and water also feature, with a large palette of blues, blue greens, greys both soft and harsh, creams, pinks and various hues of whites. Green has become a dominant colour in my landscapes and I use a variety of green tones and hues to create a spatial feeling across the picture plane.

My brushwork has become more expressive to capture the power of water, sky and movement.

David McLeod, Contemporary Landscape Painter

Solo Exhibitions

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From 4 Feb 2026 
Heartland
Montsalvat, Eltham

2023
Greener Pastures
Tacit Galleries, Collingwood

2019
Hinterland
Tacit Galleries, Collingwood

2017
Town & Country
Cambridge Studio Gallery, Collingwood

2012
Regency: Art Inspired by Living in Regent
Bundoora Homestead Gallery, Bundoora

2010
Landscape Paintings (with Peter Diamond)
Circle Gallery, West End, Brisbane

2006
The Inland Sea
Cusp Gallery, Northcote

2004
A Mirror to My World
Cusp Gallery, Northcote

1998
Studio 106 Gallery, St Kilda

1994
Christine Abrahams Gallery, Richmond