Fiona MacLeod

The oldest child of an arty family, Fiona grew up surrounded by art and design works of all kinds; painting was a normal part of everyday life. She attended Glasgow School of Art where she specialised in Ceramics, loving the immediacy of the medium and starting the development of handskills and creative processes that has been the main feature of her working life.

Skilled in many crafts, the Seventies were devoted mainly to jewellery and leatherwork while the Eighties were spent designing and making knitwear, most of which was exported to the US. The Nineties were devoted to teaching when she ran a dynamic and successful Creative Arts Faculty and so it is really only in the last few years that she has come back to painting as her main means of expression.

"The craftsman in me loves the actual process of creating a painting, working with texture and colour in mixed media. For me, the challenge and indeed the joy is the same whether arranging shapes and manipulating materials with a paintbrush, knitting machine or welder".