Lewis Banks is a designer-maker living and working in the coastal village of Aberdour in Fife. He uses glass enamel on copper to produce work ranging from small jewellery pieces through to larger pictorial and sculptural items.

Lewis was drawn to working with glass enamels by their vibrant and bold colours, perfect for the eye-catching jewellery with which he began his enamelling career, but he has found that it is also possible to create more subtle effects. He is particularly interested in representations of the sea and nature and ways in which the organic can be evoked by the colours and textures created through multiple-firings of layers of opaque and transparent enamels, some pieces being fired up to twenty times to create the desired effect.

The larger pieces are created by assembling a number of fired panels, sometimes incorporating found objects from the Fife beaches and countryside. Sometimes the panels are mounted onto boards and may be framed; other times, they might be hung on wires, to allow for movement. In both cases, the shadows cast by the panels are an integral part of the composition.

You can visit Lewis at his studio (Gallery 8)in Aberdour.