Leigh Driver

I create contemporary works in a variety of media on board, canvas and paper, taking inspiration from the English landscape, its history and its weather.

I am drawn to places where traces of the past are most evident, collecting information in notes, videos, sound recordings and photographs, as well as experimenting with expressive marks in sketchbooks.

Later, in my Brandon studio, images emerge from a combination of observation, and memory, often including a variety of viewpoints and emotions to evoke a sense of place and the passage of time. Although the choice of medium is influenced by my response to the subject, the majority of my work is in acrylic, mixed media or watercolour. 

Taking the landscape as my starting point I use a variety of media to carry out further investigation, seeking to reveal the transitions between the hidden and tangible layers of human engagement with the environment over time. Drawing on this research I work in the studio to create work that explores both past and present filtered through my own experience of a particular place. Now and then the ghosts of figures wander into the scene. At other times, images seem to come almost entirely from within, as if from dreams remembered: these have become my Inner Landscapes series.

In the early 1980s I studied Fine Art under the guidance of Graham Boyd at the Hertfordshire College of Art and Design. As well as painting and drawing, I particularly enjoyed printmaking and sculpture; both occasionally make a reappearance in my practice. Following a move from Hertfordshire to Suffolk over 30 years ago, I re-trained as a historian and wrote a couple of books about landscape history but returned to art in 2004 when I founded a community arts organization, West Suffolk Arts Centre CIC (WSAC). Since then, I have curated projects for Arts Council England, Suffolk County Council and a number of independent arts organisations. For the past decade my work has focused mainly on performance, sound art and the moving image but a period of ill-health in late 2020 prompted a reappraisal of my practice and I rediscovered my love of mark-making.

• July/August 2020  EXHIBITION - Stuart Roy

 https://www.artfinder.com/artist/stuart-roy 

• He studied fine art whilst at university in Wales, but quickly became involved in photography on a professional level. When he eventually settled in Suffolk and then Norfolk the move re-ignited his interest in painting.

As an artist he is constantly developing his personal style and exploring new ways of creating work to capture the atmosphere and the colour of a scene.