Toronto-based artist Celia Lees recently took part in a live painting experience with Johnnie Walker, bringing her expressive, process-driven approach to a dynamic public setting. Known for her gestural mark-making and intuitive abstraction, Lees translates movement, emotion and found materials into richly textured compositions.

In this collaboration, Lees responded in real time to the atmosphere, music and energy of the event, blurring the line between intentional and instinctual creation. Each brushstroke became a reflection of both her inner rhythm and the sensory environment, embodying the spirit of Johnnie Walker’s ethos, Keep Walking.

Celia Lees (b. 1996) is a Toronto-based abstract artist whose work offers a visceral exploration of lived experience, memory and the passage of time. Through large-scale, expressive paintings, she channels the emotional resonance of human connection, the fleeting rhythms of everyday life and the textures of memory into vibrant, intuitive compositions. Rooted in the physicality of mark-making, her practice embraces movement, emotion and instinct, inviting viewers to linger and encounter the quiet intimacy of shared experience.

Lees holds a Bachelor of Design from Toronto Metropolitan University and previously worked in the fashion industry, experiences that continue to inform her sensitivity to materiality, texture and colour. Her work is held in private collections across North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, and features in prominent commercial spaces including 200 Amsterdam in New York, Aria in Las Vegas and The Laurel in West Palm Beach.

Saint Cloche proudly represents Celia Lees and looks forward to presenting her debut Sydney solo exhibition this December.