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Patti Lean

 

I’m interested in painting as a way of saying things about the material world, and see painting as a process of thinking and communicating.  I collect material by walking and making sketches, photographs and sound recordings; back in the studio this becomes the impetus for abstract and semi-abstract painting.  Painting is often absent from considerations of eco-based art, but I like to think the medium of painting can give expression to the materiality of the environment and its concerns, just as ‘new nature writing’ is doing in literature and criticism.  These approaches lend voice to the view that it may no longer be useful to think in terms of separable opposites like ‘natural/man-made’ or ‘human/nonhuman’ but to consider the inextricability of these concepts one from the other.

PL-studio

Works

 

Biography

Education

2002-05
M.A. in Contemporary Fine Art (part-time). College scholarship award.

1997 – 2001
Cumbria institute of the Arts B.A. (Hons.1st class) in Fine Art.

1994-97
Dumfries and Galloway College. H.N.C./ Foundation in Art and Design.

1982-83
University of Heriot Watt/ Edinburgh College of Art. Post-graduate Diploma.

1983
R.S.A. Preparatory Certificate in Teaching English as a Foreign Language.

1977-81
University of Edinburgh. B.Sc with distinction, Social Sciences.

Recent Awards/ Teaching/ Talks/ Workshops

2002–present
University of Cumbria. Lecturer, BA Hons. Fine Art, 0.2 post.

2012
Wigtown Book Festival: ‘Audience as Artist” ‘drawing gym’.
D&G Spring Fling Open Studios: speaker at SF Roadshow.
Dunscore Art Show, curator.
Dumfries Running Club half-marathon: designed T-shirt and certificate.
Emily Ball Studio, W.Sussex: week of professional development.
RGI Kelly Gallery Glasgow, artists talk.
D&G Spring Fling Open Studios event: speaker in ‘Looking In Looking Out’ lecture series.
Organiser of Art History in the Pub talks, Carlisle.
Dumfries and Galloway Fine Arts Society, invited ‘crit giver’.

2011
Attended CEO workshop on Writing Proposals, Edinburgh.
Dunscore Art Show – on committee for community project
Attended Film Philosophy conference at John Moores University, Liverpool.
Attended 3 masterclasses for professional artists, with the painter John Skinner, at Emily Ball Studios, W. Sussex.
2010 Visiting artist, Austin Friars School, Carlisle. Various talks to local societies.

2010
Various talks/workshops – local societies.
Visiting artist, Austin Friars School, Carlisle.

2009
Scottish Arts Council/Dumfries and Galloway Council Creative Development Award.
Workshop, Dumfries and Galloway Fine Arts Society.
Moniaive Arts, talk.

2008
Dumfries and Galloway College. Lecturer in Art History.
Private commissions.
Stewartry Arts Society, talk on the work of Marc Chagall.

2007
University of Cumbria. visiting tutor in Drawing.
Dumfries and Galloway College. Temporary part-time lecturer in Art History.
Professional membership of Visual Arts Scotland.
Stewartry Arts Society, talk on The YBAs (Young British Artists)

2006
Stewartry Arts Society, invited speaker Painting with a Contemporary Approach.

Statement

Key to my work is the idea that painting can be an open-to-interpretation language of ideas and meanings, materials and forms. I take influences from the environment around me – the outdoors, my family – from other artists, and from reading – literature, language, myth, philosophy and psychology. Writers who influence my work are Marcel Proust and Lewis Hyde, who differently seem to deconstruct the world and their observations about it.

I usually paint without a pre-determined end in sight, beyond an interest in constructing space, or the illusion of it. I regard the canvas as an open arena, and the medium of painting as a kind of conversation that goes on in that arena. My growing-up as an artist was against a backdrop of landscape and the Scottish Colourists; I attended a group for several years with Archie Sutter Watt RSW, and have adapted many of the things I learned to my own work.

For me, painting is as much about paint as about a subject – so, rather than ‘window-on-the-world’ kind of painting, I’m more interested in possible space for shared experience, conversations, dialogues. Artists whose work influences me are: Gillian Ayres, Frances Walker, Roy Oxlade, Amy Sillman and Alistair McKinven.

Newtonairds-Wood-Winter-2013

 

The Citizen Naturalist Blog

 

Exhibitions

Now

28th-30th May
Spring Fling Open Studios Weekend
Taster exhibition opens 9th April at Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries
More information


Until 24th April 2016, then touring – watch this space!

IMG_0346Dean Clough Gallery, Halifax
‘Living Landscape’
Group exhibition
More information

 

 

 

February 2016

IMG_0370NewBridge Project, Newcastle
Group show, Iceland sketchbooks

 

 

 

Previous Exhibitions

2015
Vallum Ditch gallery: exhibition for re-opening of Cumbria Institute of the Arts
Walking residency in Icelandic Westfjords.
CAL-DEW-GATE University of Cumbria staff and alumni exhibition

2014
Work on display at Cumbria Business Interaction Centre, Carlisle
Residency in Ólafsfjörður and exhibition at Listhús í Fjallabyggð
Spring Fling: Dumfries and Galloway Open Studios

2013
Iain McGregor Fine Art, Glasgow; gallery artist
Spring Fling, Dumfries and Galloway Open Studios

2012
Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries – Group Show ‘Timelines’
‘Traces of Elsewhere’, Studioeleven Gallery, Hull – New paintings by Patti Lean and Kevin Phillips
Spring Fling Dumfries and Galloway Artists and Craftmakers Open Studios
Timelines, RGI Kelly Gallery, Glasgow, Group exhibition

2011
Off The Wall, Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries
Dumfriesshire Delineated, Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries
Isle of Tiree Annual Open Exhibition

2010
The CatStrand, New Galloway, solo show, ‘New Paintings by Patti Lean’
Tiree Annual Open, Isle of Tiree.
Spring Fling Dumfries and Galloway Artists and Craftmakers Open Studios
VAS Annual Open, Royal Academy, Edinburgh

2009
VAS Annual Open, City Art Centre, Edinburgh.
Tolbooth Arts Centre, Kirkcudbright.

2008
Maxwelltown Gallery, Dumfries.
Whitehouse Gallery, Kirkcudbright.
Thomas Tosh, Thornhill.
Order of St John, Stranraer.
Spring Fling Dumfries and Galloway Artists and Craftmakers Open Studios Weekend.
Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries, Spring Fling Taster.
Visual Arts Scotland Open, Royal Academy, Edinburgh.

2007
Maxwelltown Gallery, Dumfries.
North Ayrshire Open, Ayr.
Paisley Drawing Competitiion, Paisley Art Gallery.
Order of St John, Stranraer.
Spring Fling Dumfries and Galloway Artists and Craftmakers Open Studios Weekend.
Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries, Spring Fling Taster.
Stroud House Gallery, Stroud, Gloucestershire, The Farm.
Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries, 20/20.

2006
Maxwelltown Gallery, Dumfries.
Spring Fling, Dumfries and Galloway Artists and Craftmakers Open Studios Weekend.
Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries, Spring Fling Taster.
Whitehouse Gallery, Kirkcudbright.

2005
Spring Fling, Dumfries and Galloway Artists and Craftmakers Open Studios Weekend.
Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries, Spring Fling Taster.
Maxwelltown Gallery, Dumfries.

Contact

My studio is located in the South West of Scotland, a few miles north-west of Castle Douglas.

Visitors are always welcome by appointment: please get in contact or email ahead to confirm if you wish to visit.

Address:

The Church Room
Main Street
Crossmichael
DG7 3AU.

Tel: 01644 450249
Email: patti@pattilean.co.uk