Lea Ovčina

Lea Ovčina is a Toronto-based multidisciplinary artist working at the intersection of textiles and printmaking processes. Her ongoing body of work is an exploration into how inherited memory intersects lived memories and relationships with other people and the objects or environments we surround ourselves with. Through her practice, she searches the ways that her family’s varying relationships with leaving ex-Yugoslavia or staying (in what is now Bosnia) can coexist with building an independent interpretation of place and belonging and understand how notions of “Self” are built.

Through material exploration, primarily in weaving, and experimenting further with integrating natural dyeing, relief and screen printing in her work, the layering of processes embraces the shifting nature of memory and centers focus onto her storytelling.

Ovčina’s BFA graduating thesis was exhibited at OCADU GradEx 111 (2026) and was awarded the Printmaking and Publications Medal along with the Nora E. Vaughan Award. She was also a recipient of the RBC CEAD Contemporary Textile Studio Co-op Career Launcher (2024) and has taken part in various group exhibitions such as Home Sweet Home at Dundarave Print Workshop (Vancouver), Fibre with AlterWorks Studio (NYC) and Looks Good on Paper… at Propeller Art Gallery (Toronto).

Artist-in-Residence since 2026.