Lesley Birch was born in Glasgow in 1958 to an architect father and artistic mother. In 1980 she gained an MA from the University of Glasgow where she read Music, English and French. This was followed by a spell touring as a professional session keyboards player with chart-topping 80s band Hue and Cry before moving to Cambridge in 2000 with her husband and son. Here she began pursuing and developing her artistic career, supported and encouraged by a small group of artist mentors.

Lesley works in acrylic and oils, exploring her memory and imagination. Her childhood holidays on the West Coast often inform the work as well as literature, particularly the Romantic poets. She likes a semi-abstracted image and is more interested in the mark-making, layering and glazing of paint until she is happy with the result.

Her surfaces are most often canvas, but she also favours oils on paper. Her aim, she says, is to create a clear sense of atmosphere and mystery in the image, employing texture and colour to achieve this.
She was selected for London�s prestigious Cork Street Open in August 2012 and is moving forward, developing her practice through sketch-booking and life drawing.

Lesley currently works from her studio in York.

SOLO SHOWS
Lesley Birch, Time & Place, Gallery 68, York, 2012-2013
York Open Studios 2011
Lesley Birch Monoprints, The Pyramid Gallery, York, 2011
A Sense of Place, South Square Gallery, Bradford, 2009
Lesley Birch, Land & Sky, Yorkshire Dales Headquarters, 2008

RECENT MIXED SHOWS
Edge of the World, The Gallery, Masham 2012
Linear Progressions, Shine Business Centre, Leeds 2012
The Artist Magazine Competition 2010, 2012
RHS Harlow Carr Summer Art Show 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012
Great North Show, Ripon 2009, 2010
The Sea, The Sea, Gallery 49, Bridlington 2010

SELECTED SHOWS
Cities All Dimensions, Tokarska Gallery, London, 2013
Cork Street Open, London, 2012
The Art House Open 2012, Wakefield
Doncaster Open 2006, 2008, 2009, 2011
Leeds Open 2006, 2008

Awards
Highly Commended (Harrogate Open 2008)
The Artist Magazine Competition 2008
Satellite Group Prize, Leeds Art Fair 2009
Semi-Finalist, The National Art Competition 2009

Publications
The Artist & Leisure Painter Magazine, December 2011 painting "Frost at Midnight" selected as Editor's Choice

Societies
Cambridge Drawing Society 2000
Leeds Fine Art Club 2003
The Art House, Wakefield 2012
Founding Member, Donderdag Collective 2012
Founded Harrogate Printmakers 2009
Printmaking Online