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Diana Leslie, born in 1971 in Orkney, is an artist whose practice encompasses painting, printmaking and drawing. After completing her studies at the Glasgow School of Art, she continued to refine her skills at The Prince’s Drawing School in London before returning to her native Orkney in 2006 to establish her studio in Stromness. The landscapes, light and weather of the islands have remained her enduring source of inspiration.
Her work is rooted in observation and she often paints outside, responding directly to the conditions of wind and shifting light. These elemental forces animate her compositions, bringing to her paintings an immediacy and vitality that reflect the unique character of the islands. Her imagery often includes local flowers, gardens, townscapes and shorelines, revealing both the human presence within the landscape and the artist’s personal connection to it.
Leslie explores how painting can capture energy and spirit, translating the fleeting qualities of light, motion and atmosphere into enduring images that reflect both place and presence.
I was born in Orkney. I went to the Glasgow School of Art and graduated in Drawing and Painting in 1998. My second subject was printmaking. Orkney stayed with me while I wasn’t here. So I came back in 2006 to live and work as an artist. Landscape has become a big subject for me. I paint Orkney outside. The wind and dynamic light are energies which make me happy; they fly by while the mass is going nowhere. I move between source material depending on the weather, painting flowers, drawing from other artists, drawing from collaborations which make me see things differently. I’m content with the idea that if I represent my here and now it has some currency. And painting has a magical property. It can hold on to energy and strange things like freedom, even when the artist is long gone.
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