Sarah Lean
BA Hons Fine Art, University of the West of England, Bristol

Painting has always been a passion and also something more or less self taught. My work is a pure enjoyment of colour, tone and texture. I revel in being able to play with paint to my heart's content and that others take pleasure from seeing things I have created. I feel the work itself holds a quality which allows it to be evocative and yet, equally, undemanding of the viewer. I believe that attributing significance should be a personal choice.

Extensive travels over the last few years have inspired the use of colours which are present every day but which we often don't see as we become blinded by daily routine. The world is a vast and vividly coloured place which I am learning to appreciate and explore. Traveling encouraged the realisation that in reality, we rarely contemplate our relative insignificance and how that is greatly contrasted by the importance of our being here.

I like to create the illusion of depth and space, working primarily with landscapes as my subject matter whether actual or imaginary. I feel this allows for the concept of the enormity of the world to be considered. In some canvases I have chosen to punctuate this by using minute figures which virtually become enveloped by the scene.