For my 'Shadow Sculpture' series I borrow objects invested with their lenders’ emotions, memories, and sense of identity. I interview each lender about their attachment to their object, and then create a shadow with it. Although the shadow’s composition is influenced by my interpretation of lenders’ stories, ultimately the shadow becomes an autonomous entity, no longer anchored to its casting object.  

‍

Reproduced in my paintings, each shadow becomes a manifestation of my exchange with the lender. I build my paintings in layers, sculpting with colour. I am interested in the moment when the painting takes on a life of its own; when the colour-sculpted presence takes on an expression of ‘suchness’.  

‍

My paintings resist verbal interpretation, and are untied to literal meaning. They sit silently in the globalised, unanchored, over-information that we increasingly drift in.

‍

Lesley Bunch was awarded the Contemporary British Painting Prize in 2022 and The London Group Cornelissen Prize in 2023.  

She has exhibited in the UK, Europe, Asia, and the US, with solo shows ‘Absence : Presence’ in Rome, ‘Shadow Language’ in Seoul, and ‘Cut Two Pieces in Three’ in London.

Bunch studied at Goldsmiths’ College and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. She has a BA in Fine Art & Art History and an MA in Archaeology (Japanese art of the Edo Period).  

Her work is held in private collections throughout the UK, US, Italy, Germany and South Korea, and in the Priseman Seabrook Collection of 21st Century British Painting.

She is Joint Secretary of Contemporary British Painting and a member of The London Group.