About Leanne Hanson
I paint luminous landscapes inspired by moments in nature when changing light transforms a familiar place. Dawn filtering through wildflowers, sunlight slanting through the trees, evening light reflected across water: these are the moments that make me stop and look more closely.
I work from my own photographs of those moments. Each painting begins with a loose underpainting, then builds slowly through many thin, transparent glazes of oil color. Light passes through the layers and reflects back, giving the color a glow that seems to come from within the canvas.
My paintings hold both the intimate and the vast: the grounded detail of a flower, a leaf, or a blade of grass set against an open sky or the deep light of the woods. I want each one to give the viewer what those moments gave me, a pause, and a reason to look again.
Leanne Hanson's art has garnered recognition and numerous awards, Such as: Best In Show SoMi -Uptown Minneapolis; Prestigious Jim Wegner Award-Austin Artworks Festival; Best In Show-Art on The Lake, 3rd Place; Spirit Of The St.Croix Art festival; 2nd Place Minnesota State Fair. Also, has been accepted in over 50 juried art fairs, with her paintings of sun-dappled forests and luminous meadows rendered with an artist's attention to color and light.
Born and raised in Duluth, Minnesota, Leanne's childhood unfolded in a landscape of rich green woods and babbling streams. Her mother tended their home's flower gardens bursting with color, while her father — a watercolorist and head of the art department at the University of Minnesota — filled the family home with the spirit of creative inquiry and artistic tradition.
From her earliest memories, art was never a question, but an identity. "I have always thought of myself as an artist," Leanne recalls. That conviction was affirmed in high school, when she sold her first painting at an art auction. Formal education followed, blending intensive art classes with a degree in landscape design, while mentorship under her father deepened her artistic voice and technical skill. "He taught me patience," she says, "and the ability to see the world not just for what it is, but for the energy and emotion it holds."
After college, Leanne balanced art with family and the demands of business, continuing to create watercolors part-time for 25 years. With her children grown, Hanson took a decisive leap: oil painting became her new language, and she embraced art as her full-time pursuit. Her creative process is rooted in the natural world. Every painting begins on her walks, with reference photos and video capturing a specific moment of light or color before it changes. Back in her studio, she sketches lightly, lays an underpainting, and then builds each composition in jewel-like layers and glazes, investing her images with energy, depth, and richness.
"I see my painting style as realistic impressionism — the color and light of impressionism, disciplined by the precision of hand-drawn design." Her hallmark is bold, high-contrast color and layered, radiant light — a technique that gives each landscape more brilliance than the scene itself held. Leanne's process draws on American landscape painting — building luminosity through layered glazing rather than direct color.
More than technique, though, it is Hanson's intention that makes her work singular. "I'm drawn to the moments most people walk past without noticing," she says. "The way light moves through a field for just a few minutes at dusk, the exact color water turns right before the sun drops. I want a painting to hold that moment still, so it doesn't just pass by." Her work has drawn collectors and gallery interest across the Upper Midwest, Florida, and internationally, a response to paintings that ask the viewer to look at a familiar landscape as if for the first time.
Leanne continues to exhibit her work in galleries and national art fairs, building a body of work centered on the Luminous Landscapes series — original oils that hold a single, vivid moment of light in place.
