Art / Artist of the Month
Artist of the Month: Sarah Duncan
This month’s artist is Sarah Duncan, whose limited edition work is available through our online shop.
Sarah Duncan is an artist and printmaker originally from Devon who works from Spike Print Studio.
Following a decade working on feature films, Sarah undertook a degree in multidisciplinary printmaking at UWE and now creates work that subtly works in messages around worldly issues including climate change.
“Drawing and printmaking is a form of meditation for me,” Sarah says. “While working on small sections at a time I don’t perceive what I am drawing as water, the cosmos or a tree. Instead, the image is stripped down to its most basic form of colour and shape. It is only when the piece is complete can I finally experience the drawing as a whole.
“I continue to explore moments of transition and turbulence in the landscape. I choose to show the beauty rather than the devastation, a celebration of what we stand to lose.”
Sarah uses natural elements like water, stars, ice and snow as ways to introduce topics into her work: “Underlying are the activities that affect the planet’s fragile equilibrium, which is what I want to capture within my drawings and etchings. While the grandeur of the subject matter is apparent, so too is its vulnerability.”
Sarah is selling two pieces through Bristol24/7 this month: Gibbous and Sea of Tranquillity. “Gibbous is an etching inspired by time I spent doing research at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona,” Sarah explains. She begins by sketching and taking photographs, before transferring the final image onto an etching plate.
“This involves laminating a plate, which is usually aluminium, with a light sensitive film and then exposing it to UV light. There are then a number of processes to develop and etch the plate.
“Once the plate is ready I will ink the plate with oil-based inks and run it through a hefty etching press onto damp paper. Each print will take lots of tests, including exposure timings, developing times, amount of time in the acid, ink colour and press pressure. Even after weeks of tests, the final print has a slight mind of its own, which I love. The whole process is slow and meditative, there is a certain alchemy to this medium.
“I am drawn to phenomena that appear on the surface to be constant and uniform but on further inspection reveal themselves to be unique, constantly in flux and ever changing – an observation that may also apply to forms and types of light that are invisible to the naked eye.
“More recently, my work has focused on the earth, sky and water. They are immeasurable elements but the process of observing, selecting and reproducing a portion of them inside a frame makes that section more knowable whilst simultaneously revealing how unknowable the whole is.”
Sarah has chosen Borderlands, a charity that works with asylum seekers and refugees, as the charity to receive any profits from her art.
“Through various projects, they support disadvantaged and excluded people to improve their lives and their personal situations,” Sarah says. “I feel in the state of our modern world we all need to be treated equally and have equal rights. Everyone deserves to feel safe in their homeland. Also Spike Print Studio, where I work, does some art session with some of Borderlands members.”
See more of Sarah’s artwork by visiting www.print.sarahduncan.net
To buy exclusive work from Sarah and all of our previous featured artists, visit www.bristol247.com/shop
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