Alice Leach

My work is concerned with emotion and thought, provoking if need be, in an attempt to understand the frailty of existence. The basis of my practice is shaped by my visual diary. I update it daily – a random, unpredictable record of the day’s events, left raw and unfinished. I embrace various materials and techniques including sculpture.

I do not try to control or restrain my process of working. I have no desire for perfection or neatness. I prefer an unvarnished approach where things are allowed to develop. Apparent inaccuracies become embedded in the work much as they do in life. I cannot control emotions, they shift and vacillate and my work reflects the constant shift in my consciousness. If I have a pattern then it would be a desire to explore the rawer emotions, the ones we are afraid of and want to hide from. Inevitably they are noisier, more insistent, yet they are intriguing. Why do we indulge our dark sides with myths of fear and discontent? Why does loneliness betray us into deeds we can ponder over at length? I do not attempt to answer these questions anymore than any others that arise in my work, it is enough simply to engage with the chaotic fray of emotions of life.