Alice Leach

profile

Statement

 

 

My work is concerned with emotion, with memory and loss. It is the ethereal instability of both memory and emotion that has increasingly come to influence my painting. The basis of my practice is shaped by my visual diary, which in turn is shaped by my life. I update it daily – a random, unpredictable record of the day’s events, left raw and unfinished.

I embrace various materials and techniques including printmaking and 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.

 

 

 


Biography

1968Born in London
Lives and works in Devon
Education - Dartington Hall School, Devon
1987Foundation at Chelsea School of Art, London
1990 -1993First Class Degree, City & Guilds of London Art School, London
1993Executive Committee Prize for outstanding work, City & Guilds of London Art School
2011A4 Print Competition Prize

"Alice Leach received a First Class degree from City & Guilds of London Art School in 1993, but only found the confidence to be a full-time painter in her late twenties. However, it wasn’t until she was forced to face the inherent conflict of being an artist and a single mother a few years ago, that she found her niche. Combining drawing, painting and the spoken word, she started a visual diary to which she has since added individual works of art depicting her most intimate, private and uncensored thoughts and feelings on an almost daily basis. Her life-long fascination with the basic, raw and immediate approach of Dubuffet, Cy Twombly and Canadian Inuit artists becomes evident in this tremendous and ever-growing body of work, which exposes the fragility of the everyday and inspires/suggests a different, more vicarious view of life. " Joy Collective

Exhibition History

1995'Art for Youth' Royal College of Art, London
1996St. Peter's Hall, Portobello, London
1997'Not the RA' Llewellyn Alexander Gallery, London
1997Kilvert Gallery, Wales
1998Gallery 27, Cork Street, London
1998'Affordable Art Exhibition', Connaught Brown, London
1999199 Hammersmith Grove, London
1999The Chapel Gallery, Saltram House, Devon
2004Summer Exhibition, The Great Barn, Higher Ashton, Devon
2005Summer Exhibition, The Great Barn, Higher Ashton, Devon
2006Small Originals, Ashburton, Devon
2007Hepsibah Gallery, London
2007Open Studio, Devon
2007Chelsea Arts Club, London
2008The Flavel Centre, Dartmouth, Devon
2008Joy Collective, live performance Exeter, Devon
2008istorm Modern, Exeter, Devon
2008'Off the Peg', Dartington Printmakers, Devon
2009'The Space in Between', Phoenix Art Centre, Exeter, Devon
2009'Just a Line', The Bowie Gallery,Totnes, Devon
2009'In Triplicate' Devon Open Studios, Devon
2009'The One That Got Away' Hepsibah Gallery, London
2009'Off The Peg' Dartington Printmakers, Dartington, Devon
2010'Online' Exhibition, Red Propeller Gallery, Devon
2010'Mr & Mrs Basic', The Bowie Gallery, Totnes, Devon
2010'Book Art', Dartington Printmakers at Ways with Words, Dartington, Devon
2010A4 Printmakers Competition Exhibition, Open Space Galleries, Penryn Cornwall
2011'Up Close', The Devon Guild of Craftsmen, Devon
2011Gintanjali Poetry Fair, Tagore Festival, Sharpham House, Devon
2011Paintings and Prints, The Flavel, Dartmouth, Devon
2011'Trace' with Clem So and Kate Marshall, Birdwood House Gallery, Totnes, Devon