Alex
Leadbeater
Working as a professional artist for over 40 years, Alex makes paintings and prints mostly in acrylic, with textured surfaces and layers of paint. Inspired by living near the sea, her subjects include large energetic waves or calm waters, as well as everyday objects and timeless vessels. Alex’s early work was mostly figurative, with life size paintings of objects presented like museum exhibits.
Often on fragmented backgrounds, rusty and damaged by use, they are familiar and timeless, discarded yet treasured. Exhibited in galleries and non-gallery spaces the objects integrated in to their environment and were seen in a different context. One critic described them as looking like Roman advertising hoardings.
Since moving to the coast, her focus has been on the sea with her paintings more concerned with movement and colour, as she aims to convey the feeling of being in water rather than describing the sea in paint. The sea in all its moods is a constant inspiration and increasingly concerns about the environment inform her work. Alex is currently experimenting with different materials, making a series of prints and incorporating recycled plastics into the surface.