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Treasure In Stillness

By  Sarah Poland 2019
This work was developed during a residency at G.S. Artists in Swansea as part of their 'Artist At Work' programme. I also had an Arts Council Wales research & development grant to assist me with this. The images show installation of work in the space for a final open weekend plus an in conversation event with artist Alex Duncan. See 'info' for a link to the conversation on Youtube, a review and 'c.v.' for a link to the gallery. Artist Statement I produce work which draws upon woodland structures, natural elements and materials plus personal experiences such as meditation, motherhood and transformation. This project title Treasure In Stillness relates to the wisdom found when one is still and also to the duality of combining an art practice with the challenges of motherhood with the presence of landscape and being in it the source. Within the meditation of making work I also contemplate the materials and the immense value of our wild places plus the wider issues of plastic pollution and climate change. I try to use sustainable and natural materials where possible. I make my own oak gall ink and in some works combine it with what I call moon drawings, photographic pieces using the full moon as a light source with which to draw. Larger works engage physically and spatially as well as conceptually, building relationships between the materials and the abstract, between nature and transformation. The woodland is large, slow, immersive, all consuming - traits to certainly be considered. I hope that these distinctive techniques have the potential to draw interest in towards not only the work, but what it is to fully immerse oneself in a place, to develop awareness and mindfulness, to contemplate the material, the immense value of our wild places and to find what treasures there are in stillness.
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Sarah Poland in her storage trailer September 2017

Sarah Poland in her studio September

Materials of Place. Oak Gall Ink - Ink of Poets and Kings.

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