About

The Artist Behind the Work

I'm Esme Lillico, a Suffolk-based artist currently pursuing an MFA alongside my role as Head of Art at a secondary school. I work primarily in charcoal and graphite — media I keep coming back to for their extraordinary tonal range. From the deepest black to the faintest trace of grey, they let me render light and shadow with an honesty that colour sometimes masks.

My work explores identity and intimacy. I'm drawn to the quiet, unguarded moments that reveal who someone really is — a glance held a beat too long, the weight of a resting hand, the way light falls across a face when no one thinks they're being watched. Every portrait is an attempt to hold onto something fleeting and make it permanent.

"Every face tells a story. My job is to listen with a pencil."

Drawing has always been the most honest way I know to look at someone. The slow, deliberate process of building a portrait by hand — mark by mark — creates something a photograph simply cannot replicate. I've been fortunate to exhibit in galleries in Halifax and Sheffield, and my work sits at the intersection of fine art and portraiture — the kind of image you'd frame not because it's perfect, but because it's true.