Sarah Kirby: A Printmaker’s Landscape
9 November 2024 –22 February 2025
YSP Centre
Inspired by Yorkshire Sculpture Park’s (YSP) landmarks and vistas, renowned printmaker Sarah Kirby creates a whole new body of work for a stunning exhibition.
Claiming the coveted Christmas retail exhibition slot at YSP, Sarah Kirby will present a new series of original linocuts in the main visitor centre. The Leicester-based artist is one of the UK’s leading linocut printmakers. She is inspired by British public spaces, buildings, gardens, flora and fauna, and works out of her garden studio.
Sarah has been visiting YSP throughout 2023-24 to document her favourite walking routes and landmarks at the Park. She has sketched and taken photographs, discovering the various species of trees across the landscape, unearthing new views and natural forms from which she has created this new, unique body of work. All of the prints will be for sale, with prices from £195 to £425. YSP is a charity, and all proceeds from sales supports its work inspiring all people to enjoy and engage with art, nature and creativity.
Growing up next door to Cambridge University Botanic Gardens, Sarah’s father was a plant physiologist who taught her the joys of gardening and inspired her to explore and interact with nature. She has spent her life building up knowledge about the future of nature, contemplating the existence of nature for people, plants, the future, the security of food production, and the preservation of trees and wooded areas.
Sarah uses a minimalistic but bold colour palette that reflects upon the typical and expected colours of the landscape, whilst including some unexpected elements. This is perfectly illustrated in the Camellia House series which depict her YSP visits during Spring 2023 when the Camellias were in full bloom. Here she uses the many shades of pinks and droplets of water on the glass panes distorting the pinks, making the entire space look like a magical stage set.
Sarah also employs iconic sculptures such as the Henry Moore Reclining Figure: Arch Leg (1969-70) and legacy pieces such as Peter’s Fold (2022) and Shadow Stone Fold (2007) by Andy Goldsworthy, as well as YSP’s historical buildings such as the Bretton Hall, the Bothy, the 18th-century Chapel, the Greek Temple and the Shell Grotto. Pooling all of these features and attributes together, Sarah has generated an artistic map of YSP; an impressionistic illustrator’s view that culminates in A Printmaker’s Landscape.
Sarah explained: “Having the show coming up at YSP has been a great opportunity for me to really explore the Park over the last 18 months. I knew and enjoyed YSP before but in the past have tended to head towards the exhibitions and do a relatively similar walk every time. I now have had time to explore the Park - take different routes and walks through different seasons and all weathers.
Walking with a sketchbook, mostly on my own, has focussed my thoughts and extended the pauses along the way. I have discovered new favourite spots, views, sculptures and trees! I love that in some parts of the Park I can feel as though I am on my own in nature, it is also a place clearly enjoyed by so many people in different ways all year round.
For me the historic elements – not just Bretton Hall but, for instance, the Greek Temple in the woods, the cordoned fruit trees in the walled Bothy Garden, the mix of now mature specimen trees add to its interest and keeps alive the connection and need that people have a for green spaces… places where my mind can rest and my imagination can roam.”
Amanda Peach, retail programme and development manager at YSP, said: “Sarah has a curiosity and deep interest for learning about historic landscapes and heritage sites; their past occupants and the buildings they occupied. She illustrates scenes with an alternative viewpoint, looking at places through the eyes of a skilled printmaker who is imagining the image being built up from layers of cut away lino.”
She added: “Sarah excels in linocut printmaking with her work portraying great dexterity and skill of mark making, creating texture and depth whilst showing an understanding of her medium; knowing when to cut and reveal and when not to cut. Her method is a considered, handcrafted process from start to finish and takes time to refine and create a finished print. But she still creates the whole edition of prints herself, feeling the process and the idea are entirely bound together as one.”
