Lesley Whelan

Lesley is a visual artist working from a studio on The Canal Basin in Coventry.  Lesley's work is sold in galleries across the country and held in various corporate/public sectors in the UK, and private collections worldwide.  Lesley was Artist in Residence at Birmingham's Botanic Garden for a year a while back, working alongside a botanist and using The Gardens research materials as inspiration for her work.  Currently Lesley is working on a really exciting project with a mathematician from The University of Warwick, called 'Equate', and together they are looking at the mathematical patterns found in Coventry's War Memorial Park.

Lesley has been working with Creative Partnerships as a Creative Agent for over 4 years now.  During that time she has worked with more than 6 different schools, some of them Change, some Enquiry, helping to develop creative skills and abilities, and hopefully encouraging teachers to challenge how they work and to experiment with new ideas: 

"It has been a rewarding experience and I have worked with some great people along the way.  I always enjoy my visits to schools - catching up with the teachers, seeing what's been happening....it makes it all worthwhile.  Challenges?  Well, yes there's been a few....but they quite often give the best learning experiences, and lets face it, creativity can solve almost any problem!"

Lesley originally trained to be a teacher and taught for over ten years in primary schools, and still in fact teaches for a small proportion of the week.  Lesley believes this has given her a good grounding in the way schools operate and the pressures that teachers are up against.

Lesley lives in Coventry with her husband and their 2 children and she values the time spent with family and friends:  "I also enjoy slamming a ball around on the tennis court every now and again!"

If you would like to see some of Lesley's work please visit: www.lesleywhelan.co.uk