Valerie McLean is an Artist, Educator, Mentor and Art Writer. She has taught Studio Practice and Visual Culture at Edinburgh College of Art and is Course Leader for a yearlong Painting Course at Leith School of Art where she is also Curriculum Development Lead. She is a professional member of Visual Arts Scotland and the Society of Scottish Artists.

Working from life, memory, imagination, drawings and photographs her paintings and drawings have roots in diverse landscapes and are concerned with probing the visual and conceptual relationships which emerge in the juxtaposition of opposing pictorial tropes and methods of paint application. Drawing references from 19th century Romanticism she brings together the dream like and the everyday and focuses specifically on how the materials of painting, drawing and visual imagery can create worlds where opposing elements, such as order and chaos and abstraction and figuration, dwell together. 
 

Her recent works are multi panel pieces. In these new paintings spontaneous and abstract elements arise from an improvisational use of materials, colour, mark, and shape alongside more considered compositional elements. She is interested in allowing the work to take its own course, welcoming the unforeseen and unpredictable, while drawing on the felt and observed experiences of spending significant periods of time walking and exploring the natural landscape both near her home, on the outskirts of Edinburgh, and further afield. Her challenge is to make coherent, yet thought provoking, paintings rooted in a 'felt sense' of being in the world.
 

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Website:-

VALERIE MCLEAN - Home (valmclean.com)

VALERIE MCLEAN graduated in the History of Fine Art and English Language and Literature at Glasgow University before going on to complete a postgraduate qualification in Systems Analysis and Design. After an extensive career teaching computing as a Lecturer and Curriculum Leader at FE level she returned to her first love of art and undertook the Foundation Course at Leith School of Art before studying at Edinburgh College of Art. Here, she received numerous awards for her work including several travel scholarships, the Andrew Grant Bequest Award for painting and The Katherine Michaelson Prize for art writing. She went on to complete a Master of Philosophy. Val lives and works in Edinburgh.

Val is passionate about painting, drawing and teaching and is Course Leader for the yearlong One Day Painting course at Leith School of Art where she is also Curriculum Development Lead.  She has also taught art practice and theory across all levels at Edinburgh College of Art.

Working from a studio in her garden Val's work is rooted in landscape and is concerned with interrogating how abstract and figurative elements can come together to create an intriguing and thought provoking sense of place.