DRIVER, Leigh

1962 - ?

As Leigh Alexandra Cousins she was born in July 1962. She married at Watford in 1982 Robert Antony William Driver (24 November 1960-15 January 2007) and works as Leigh Driver. In the early 1980s she studied Fine Art at the Hertfordshire College of Art and Design under the guidance of Graham Boyd (born 1928). As well as painting and drawing she also enjoyed printmaking and sculpture, and both occasionally make a reappearance in her practice. Following a move from Hertfordshire to Suffolk in the 1990s she re-trained as a historian taking her MSc English Local History at the University of Oxford 2005-2007 and wrote two books 'The English Village' (2005) and 'The Lost Villages of England' (2006) but she returned to art, founding a community arts organization, West Suffolk Arts Centre CIC. Taking the landscape as a starting point she uses a variety of media to carry out further investigation, seeking to reveal the transitions between the hidden and tangible layers of human engagement with the environment over time. Drawing on this research she works in the studio to create work that explores both past and present filtered through her own experience of a particular place. Leigh has curated projects for Arts Council England, Suffolk County Council, and several independent arts organisations and since about 2010 her work has focused on performance, sound art and the moving image. In the late 2020s a reappraisal of her practice she rediscovered mark-making. A member of the Suffolk Open Studios from 16 Linnet Crescent, Brandon, Suffolk.
Website: https://leighdriver.com

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Works by This Artist