Andrea McLean was born in Denbighshire, Wales. She studied at Falmouth School of Art, the Slade School of Art and the British School at Rome on an Abbey Scholarship in Painting.
Andrea’s painting ‘A Contemporary Mappa Mundi’ is on display at the British Library as part of their permanent collection. She is a featured artist in Tess Jaray’s book ‘Paintings: Mysteries and Confessions’. Solo exhibitions include the Bleddfa Centre, Art Space Gallery London, Barbican Centre and The Art Shop. Andrea lives and works in Ledbury, Herefordshire.
‘My paintings are imaginary maps. Green Umber roads branch like a Medieval Jesse Tree. There are berries and shoots. Sometimes I think of embroidery or fresco as I paint with oil on a gesso ground on linen. They build up slowly in layers. For me, they are a visual diary of the time spent working on them. I want to show contemporary life with a strong sense of history. Painting, for me, is a way to try to show nature’s changing patterns. With mixtures of earth pigments, manganese blues, vermilions and madder lakes, I paint to chart my day to day experience of the turning world.’