‘”…..to discover existing, past and future environments…”

 Sara’s field notebook, December 2018

 

A short introduction to me and my practice….

I am an artist with an affinity for wilderness, a concern for environment and a need for community. I have a persistent curiosity about physical and conceptual relationships with the environment, especially in remote or rural locations.

I often use low-tech video footage as the source and starting point for reprocessing subjects through drawing and painting.  My interest lies in the potential inherent in the process of creating paintings rather than executing a pre-planned image.

In contrast to the over-saturated, heightened, screen-based reality through which we increasingly experience our environment, my paintings and drawings reclaim the world as a personal encounter of depth and complexity.

 

An outline of my SAW Development Project……

Somerset’s woodlands and forest are diverse and variously planted or naturally evolved. I am fascinated to learn more and use my practice to reveal and deepen my understanding of environmental relationships and encounters (specifically focussing on woodland management, industry and recreation). The changing nature and purpose of woodland and forest management echoes the changing relationships communities have with their landscapes more broadly.

Metaphor is employed consistently in my works to interpret relationships with and observations of the natural environment. I will explore notions of ‘permanence and impermanence’ and the ‘substance and essence’ of the forests.

Reinterpreting video footage is a process of digesting and re-forming an original site-specific experience, combining logic, skill, intuition and emotion. I will gather video footage, together with microscopic and other photographic imagery to use as sources for evolving my existing working methods. My previous practice, focussing on coastal relationships mirror many of the encounters with woodlands.

My enquiry will test the unique potential for paint and gesture in reprocessing, analysing and reinterpreting source material. I hope to create empirical evidence of the relevance of the process of painting and drawing as methods of subverting rational, literal or analytical responses to subjects and objects. The act of making paintings is inherently instinctive, intuitive and spontaneous.