Featured Artist: Joyce Leitch: Ground Floor Gallery

Longshore Drift

This body of work examines our natural environment and the interventions put in place by man to counteract the potentially harmful effects of climate change, rising sea levels and coastal erosion.  It explores the benefits of planting sea grasses and use of chestnut fencing to stabilise the eroding sand dunes.  Groyens act as a buffer against the rising tides in the windswept East Coast landscapes.

Joyce Leitch is an artist and printmaker based in Glasgow. A graduate of Glasgow School of Art, she has spent the years since then developing her practise across etching, monoprinting and woodcut to produce an eclectic body of work.

Subject matter has been varied, in recent years focusing on the theme of 'change' - of landscapes, climate, the seasons.  Longshore drift is a geological process of change linked to the currents of our seas and oceans.

Joyce has witnessed these changes through an intergenerational lens.  Spending family time in many locations from St Andrews, through to Portobello, and down to Cove Bay. Devastating erosion can happen overnight with one extreme tide. We and the next generation will be responsible for the slowing and potential reversal of this process.

Leitch has exhibited widely in solo, and group shows both in Scotland and internationally. These shows have been held at prestigious institutions, including a solo show at Glasgow School of Art in 1997, and has regularly being featured in RSA and RA group shows. Internationally her work has been exhibited in Brussels, Montreal, Ohio, Cincinnati, and Dublin.

She has had several shows at Glasgow Print Studio over the years starting from 1998, including Featured Artist shows in 2013 and 2016, and being featured in the 2021 exhibition, 'Mono'.