Deirdre Borlase
Painter & Printmaker

Deirdre Borlase was the born in London. She studied at Bromley School of Art and won an Exhibition Scholarship to the Royal College of Art. On leaving the Royal College of Art she taught at Kingston-upon-Thames School of Art and at Harrow School of Art. In 1977 she began printmaking at Morley College. She now lives in York.

She has shown at The Royal Academy of Arts, The Royal Portrait Society, The New English Arts Club, The Royal Society of Painters and Etchers & Engravers and many galleries in London and the provinces.

Deirdre Borlase works with oils, watercolour, collage, monoprint and various forms of intaglio print. She has also experimented with computer based painting. Commissions include a group of six large watercolours for St. Luke's Hospital Bradford. In 1993 her work was written-up in Country Life Magazine.

It has been said that her paintings are 'attractively deceptive'. A more penetrating look reveals strong structure and powerful compositions. Her unexpected but pointed juxtapositions suggest a hidden irony that is rare among watercolourists. Still-lifes of domestic objects and animals can be slightly cloying, but those of Deirdre Borlase avoid this danger totally and endow their subjects with presence and quirky meaning.

Deirdre Borlase evokes a decorative and amusing world, where bright colours and interesting compositions are used to achieve the effect of 'ordered disorder'.