Sarah Purvey is artist-in-residence at Corsham Court, this is her first solo show at Twenty Twenty Gallery.

Approaching the studio where Sarah Purvey is currently artist in residence at Corsham Court in Wiltshire, one passes an enormous cloud hedge made of yew, a spectacular work of nature sculpted by human artifice. One is able to walk into the underside of the hedge, at the point where it ends, close to the main house. To do so is as though to enter a hushed private realm, in which are seen the ropes and pulleys of trunks and branches that form the infrastructure of the dramatic green cumulus outside.Purvey works both in clay and on paper, an inter-related body of work in which drawing is the unifying factor. Throughout, the process is instinctive and organic. In clay there are vessels and deeply encrusted relief pieces, the latter roughly circular or square. The vessels are not functional but are highly distinctive sculptural objects, their surfaces earthy and tactile.

Dr. Ian Massey

Sarah Purvey in her studio

“When starting a drawing, there’s no conscious decision made to follow an idea or a thought, no structured plan exists of the process ahead. Marks are made onto a surface which are pushed and chased across the blank page. The physical action of drawing becomes all absorbing.

When working, the studio is a quiet space without the disturbance or influence of music or voices on the radio. The time is used to listen, to feel, to respond. Thoughts and conversations fill my mind, some are welcome, some not so, but the process of being absorbed by the drawing itself allows me to explore those personal moments, drawing out the emotional connections felt, allowing the language of the drawing to speak for me.”

Sarah Purvey – February 2022

Gatekeepers I and II. Hand built stoneware, slip.

Approx 54-56cm high.

Fairytale. acrylic, gouache, chalk, pencil

70 x 50cm

“Drawing, in its broadest sense has always been my primary practice. Before starting as Artist in Residence at Bath Spa University in 2020, my practice was predominantly in ceramic, working mostly in 3d drawn clay forms using monumental coiled ceramic vessels as my carrier.

The residency at Corsham Court has facilitated an intense exploration of drawing with the important realisation that no real distinction in approach exists between my two chosen mediums. When working in clay there’s no expected outcome of the drawing that will be made, only the knowledge that when building a structure in clay I am preparing to make a drawing.

The two mediums are physically different from one another, but the energy and intuitive process employed with both is very much the same, one does not lead the other, the action and energy of drawing leads the process.”

Boundaries. gouache, oil pastel, pencil.

38 x 28cm

Gateway. handbuilt stoneware, slips, oxide.

49cm high x 28cm

Read – Dr. Ian Massey’s essay on Boundaries