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Lesley Birch

Biography

Lesley Birch is a painter and printmaker. She creates evocative semi-abstract works inspired by her connection to Time and Place. 

From the wild and rugged landscapes of Scotland, Ireland and Yorkshire to the mystery of a Welsh Forest, Lesley is inspired by the air, sounds around her expressed through colour, texture and mark-making. 

Born in Glasgow in 1958, Birch gained her MA in English Literature and Music at the University of Glasgow. During the 1980s, she worked as a professional musician touring the UK and USA with chart-topping Scottish band Hue and Cry. 

She began exploring her interest in printmaking and painting in 2000 whilst teaching English Literature in Cambridge. After moving to Yorkshire, she won a ‘highly commended’ in the Harrogate Open (2007) and held her first solo show, Land & Sky, at the Yorkshire Dales Centre (2008). Birch’s work has been exhibited widely, at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Cork Street Open and ING Discerning Eye at the Mall Galleries. Her work is also held in the Royal Marsden Hospital Collection. In 2016, Birch won the UK Artist Magazine Award and The Clairefontaine Award. 

Always developing her practice, Birch experiments with a range of media, selecting the media to suit her response to her subject. 

In 2017, after a painting trip 2017, to the remote Scottish island of Islay, she developed a technique of mixing printmaking with painting because of her "love of working on paper" and the immediacy it offers her in mark-making. In the same year, she was selected to make a contribution to a USA book "Cold Wax Medium: Technique, Concepts and Conversations" by Rebecca Crowell and Jerry McLaughlin.

Birch continues to develop her practice, with a lockdown alla prima oil paintings remembering fond places. Often paintings veer into abstraction sparked by her reaction to events, places and her feelings. 

“A line, a shape or a colour may start as a motif for a body of work,” she says. “During lockdown my work has reverted to my personal life expressed in abstract form in my Holding Series.”

Lesley’s emotive use of colour and expressive marks speak to the viewer. She has produced fine art prints for John Lewis, King & McGaw, The Fine Art Company and Artiq and became a member of the Society of Scottish Artists in 2019. Birch is a founding member of PICA Studios in York, where she now lives and works.