Tessa Green was born in Hertfordshire and moved to the North East in 1975 to study Fine Art at Newcastle University. After graduating in 1979 she worked in community arts for a while but gave up painting. She then went to Newcastle Polytechnic to study law and became a solicitor in 1987. She worked as a solicitor and law lecturer until 2000 when she was appointed as a part-time Employment Tribunal Chairman.

In 1999 she started painting again and in the Autumn of 2000 she gave up working full-time to spend more time painting.

Tessa has relatives in Greece and has been visiting since 1963. She now divides her time between the island of Hydra in Greece and Gateshead in the North-East of England.

Using acrylics, inks and pastels on paper and canvas, she creates vibrant colourful works which are her responses to the world rather than copies of it. Most have some reference to landscapes. She spends a lot of time walking and these walks provide the inspiration for much of her work although some new works have music as their starting point. For more about her working methods see the 'work in progress' section of this web site.

'I paint because I enjoy doing it and now don't think too much about. Thinking about it too much is what stopped me painting after I left college. There are lots of different reasons for creating works of art but for me it's simply that I want to do it. In 1999 I took some time of work and had a good think about what I wanted to do (you could call it a mid-life crisis!) I started painting again at that time and realised that it had been like I had a limb I'd not been using that was withering away. It's good for my soul. The other decison I made at that time was to spend more time in Greece a country where I have relatives and that I have visited regularly since childhood. It's a place that allows the creative part of me to flourish and a lot of my work is done there.'