Ann Welch
Artist
Ann Welch, born in Manchester, divides her time between England and Greece and has been resident on the island of Lesbos for over 35 years, so it is natural that the beauty of the island and its people are her main subjects. One critic of the show ‘British Artist Paint Lesbos’ for which she was a guest curator and participant at the Teriade Museum in Varia, Mytilene some years ago, mentioned that she had an ‘erotic’ relationship with the island’s landscape, something she doesn’t deny: it’s an ongoing affair. Ann also lives in the village of Oare, near Faversham, Kent. For over 20 years, she was part of West End Studios in Chatham until it closed.
Her last one-person exhibit at Creek Creative in Faversham was titled ‘Ithaka’ and raised money for the Pipka refugee camp in Lesbos. Her work was selected to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the Museum of the Petrified Forest in Sigri, Lesbos, and she has exhibited her oils, watercolours, batiks, frescos, and traditional Orthodox iconography internationally at such places as Julie’s Artisan’s Gallery, the Donnell Library, Gayle Wilson’s Gallery in New York, and the Bellevue Museum in Seattle, among other venues in Denver and Berkeley, California and elsewhere in the U.S. Her icons may be seen at Rochester Cathedral, St. Peter and Paul Church, Edenbridge, Kent, the Methodist Church, Chistlehurst, Kent, St. Peter’s Church, Oare, and have been on display at numerous shows at Keynes College, University of Kent and The Chapter House of Canterbury Cathedral, The Russian Cultural Centre, London, and in exhibits of the British Association of Iconographers in London. Ann participated in many shows as a member of the Brooklyn Watercolour Society. Her work is published in six books.
Ann is influenced by the great English landscape painters such as Palmer and Hitchens. In recent years she has curated and shown in three shows held at St. Peter’s Church, Oare, one of which, the highly acclaimed Divine Dimensions installation. Was awarded a Heritage Lottery Fund grant for its illumination of the role of Byzantine art in British history.