Hi i am Sahra, i am fascinated by the processes of nature and time, i enjoy the randomness of life, and questions of permanence. .
I work across a variety of mediums, and this cultures a freedom in me which means i don’t restrict my practice.. although i predominantly lean towards sculpture and photography it seems. I celebrate having an open outlook (often with a smile at the ready) which is reflected in my work.
With my photography, the use of natural/available light is an important factor to me as it imparts a unique energy to the images created and keeps a natural opportunity to the work, light and time being ever shifting means i utilise individual never to be repeated moments in time … .. . . . . .
With my recent sculpture works i endeavoured to capture the ‘essence’ of natural energy using a visual language, art in dialogue with natural forces. A recent work called’Time and Tide’ was a journey into the energy present within tidal movement, i cast plaster ‘rods’ which i then placed in the tidal river, this is where my control in the work paused and the element of randomness and chance took over, natural forces were now artist … and i waited for a successive number of tides to pass with anticipation of the results……
I have explained my personal work with tidal energy in early blogs, and am always encouraged to find someone else whose work involves the tides…
Escher..
Ever since i was old enough to enjoy art, i remember first seeing M.C. Escher’s fantastical worlds, shapes in tessellation and much more.. beautifully hand drawn works that occupied me for hours, in looking at the various skills that had been utilised and exploring visually, the scenes set before one.. Mauritus Cornelis Escher, born 1898, was a Dutch graphic artist, and used mathematical inspiration for a lot of his works, using regular patterns of division, or featuring impossible constructions, explorations of infinity, architecture and tessellations. He explored mathematical relationships among shapes figures and space. He liked to sketch landscapes and nature, also insects (which appeared frequently in his work) using his sketches as a point of inspiration.
Escher created many works involving stairways, like this above..
I have since discovered another artist whose work is very similar, in that they appear feasible, but would be impossible to physically construct.. his name is Oscar Reutersvard, born 1915, a Swedish graphic artist who had a fascination for ‘impossible figures’ which confuse the brains intuitive knowledge of physical laws, in much the same way as Eschers work, in fact some of their work could easily be attributed to either artist but for its heritage being documented. I think both artists have made a ‘particular genre’ of work, with their specific fascination in their subjects..
Reutersvard created many impossible forms, like this one above..
A retrospective of M C Escher’s work is on display as part of the Edinburgh Art Festival, in the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, until the 27th of September 2015. The display will then travel to London’s Dulwich Picture Gallery in October…
This is a collection of unprecedented amount… The hoard of contemporary works amassed by the Swiss collector Uli Sligg, is on show for the first time ever, and here, in England.. at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, UK.
Among the artists are Zhang Huan and Ai Wei Wei………….
This fantastic collectors hoard, is now on display until the 20th of September, 2015.
