Peter McLeish is a Canadian born international multi-media artist, painter, filmmaker and lecturer with a Master of Fine Arts degree. He is also a published author and a music composer. His initial education was in the sciences (physics & advanced mathematics) prior to his training in the visual arts. He has over 90 solo and group exhibitions and/or film presentations and lectures to an estimated audience of over 250,000 in over 70 cities in many countries including Australia, Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales), the United States, Canada, Argentina, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Germany, Singapore, Thailand, People’s Republic of China, South Korea and Italy. Peter received over twenty various types of grants and/or awards from different branches of the Canadian and Quebec Governments as well as event support from sections of the United States, Danish, Thai and Australian Governments.
Peter has been collaborating with American scientist Dr. Walter A. Lyons on multi-media projects based on an upper atmospheric optical phenomena (associated with thunderstorms) named Red Sprites.
Walter A. Lyons received a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant for this collaboration which led to creation of the film titled The Hundred Year Hunt for Red Sprites, interactive website and (Peter’s film ) Lightning’s Angels.
Peter has also been cooperating with Dr. Colin Price from University of Tel Aviv- Israel on the previous NASA Space Shuttle Columbia’s MEIDEX mission. 
January 2003 the first Israeli astronaut, Ilan Ramon, participated in the STS-107 flight of the Columbia Space Shuttle as part of the MEIDEX mission. Part of this mission was to study sprites from space. Although the Columbia mission ended tragically, the astronauts observed numerous sprites from space with their calibrated cameras.
Peter has been developing projects and films based on the Polar Regions and other phenomenon.
He has given numerous newspaper, magazine, television & radio interviews in many countries including recently in TheWeather (Spring/2012 edition) a London-UK based magazine article titled High Art and a September 7th/2012 article Red Sprites piece1 in an Invercargill -New Zealand based newspaper in the Southland Times titled Red Skies at Night His research has also been documented in many publications around the world such as his Leonardo Journal/The MIT Press article titled THE HISTORIC SEARCH FOR RED SPRITES: How my Art Meets Science in “Lightning’s Angels”.
During his previous tours of the United Kingdom, he had solo lectured at prestigious institutions and organizations such as
- the University of Cambridge
- the Royal Astronomical Society in London
- the Royal Meteorological Society in Reading
- the Institute of Physics Headquarters in London
He is possibly the only artist to have solo lectures / film presentations at the before mentioned United Kingdom institutions and organizations. He is one of the few people in history to have solo lectures at both Oxford University and the University of Cambridge.
He has also given lectures / film presentations at some of the best museums such as:
- the Natural History Museum in London-United Kingdom
- the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C-United States
- the Australian Museum in Sydney-Australia
He has the unique opportunity of giving science lectures / film presentations for major science institutions, museums/centers as well as giving art lectures, film presentations and exhibitions for art institutions, museums and centers such:
- the Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum in Chicago-United States
- the National Museum of Australia in Canberra-Australia
- the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) in Melbourne-Australia
- the Spazio Oberdan in Milan- Italy
- Sala Emilio Saraco / Neuquén Museum of Fine Arts in Neuquén–Argentina
- the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull-United Kingdom
- Queensland Museum South Bank in Brisbane-Australia
- Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh-United States
- TELUS World of Science-Calgary in Calgary-Canada
- Canada South Science City in Windsor-Canada
- the Evansville Museum of Arts History and Science in Indiana-United States
- the Great North Museum: Hancock in Newcastle Upon Tyne-United Kingdom,
- the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington-New Zealand,
- Te Manawa Museum of Art, Science & History in Palmerston North-New Zealand
- the Royal Institution of Australia in Adelaide-Australia
- the Geological Museum-Natural History Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen-Denmark
- Planetarium Hamburg in Hamburg-Germany
- Nikolaj Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center in Copenhagen-Denmark
- the Art Centre Silkeborg Bad in Silkeborg-Denmark.
Peter believes it is important to promote unity, between art and science in order to create a better understanding of the natural world.