Emma Stibbon

Emma Stibbon RA, Hverir, Iceland Ink and volcanic dust. 130 x 183 cm
The sublime and landscapes that we associate with this, is still a very important subject matter and one that has a particular relevance for drawing. Emma Stibbon is of particular interest as she has been able to forge a career out of following her interest in those places in the world that are still awesome, that fill us with awe. The drawing above is typical of her best work. She has mixed her ink with volcanic dust, this indicating that she went to the site and has collected her drawing material from the very spot that she is examining. The scale of the drawing is big enough to impose itself on an observer, over 4 feet high, it is is big enough to fill your field of vision as you stand in front of it. The mixture of ink and volcanic dust allows Stibbon to make marks that both represent the landscape and make us aware of their own physicality. Notice how at times the ink/ash mixture runs down the surface of the paper. The image selection is done in such a way that this could almost be an image from the moon, only the wisps of steam coming from volcano craters give away their earthly origins. 

Etching

In the image above you can get a better idea of how her interest in an aspect of landscape is also an interest in how materials can be played with. The smoke from a volcano is rendered using a series of marks that come naturally from the way that ink and resists whorl around the surface of a plate as you add solvents to them. This being an image as much about the materials of intaglio printmaking as it is about an Icelandic volcano. 

Stibbon is also a printmaker and her large etchings continue the theme of scale and almost otherworldly landscapes. In particular her recent trip to the Artic has caused her to reflect on the perilous state that this fantastic landscape now finds itself facing. Are these the last images humans will ever see of a snow and ice covered wilderness? She is very aware that these types of sublime images have political undertones. She says this about her work; "I see my work fitting somewhere within a North European Romantic tradition – landscape has a peculiar hold over the British psyche and the rich literary and visual legacy of Romanticism in British art is defining in terms of my own values and beliefs. However I am aware of a tension here, in a contemporary context, our perception of landscape is always contingent. What may have been considered wilderness or pristine in nature we now have to recognize is often fragile or under threat. Our perception of place is refocused through a changing environment. I am interested in whether drawing or print can connect the viewer with the urgencies of our relationship with environment  and an experience of place".

Etching approx 4 to 5 feet wide. 

The scale of her prints gives them a physicality that helps make a direct connection with the landscape experienced. She also likes to link the technique of printmaking to the subject matter, so in the case of the mountain landscape below, this is a woodcut, the technique echoing both the northern expressionist tradition of printmaking and the clean cut shapes that can be made with a wood chisel closely mirror the way that snow sits and falls away from rocky surfaces. 

Woodcut mountains

It's hard to get an idea of the scale of her images from reproductions, but this image of her at work might help. 

Emma Stibbon at work on a drawing

She is not just interested in the sublime as an aspect of our experience of nature, she also deals with similar experiences in the built environment, in particular in Berlin, where she finds traces of a Nazi preoccupation with grand building schemes designed to awe the people and make them believe in the permanence of the 3rd Reich. 

She also draws water and those of you that have been following these posts should be very aware by now that I have a particular interest in the way various artists over time have responded to this seemingly endlessly inventive fluid. 

Emma Stibbon: Sea 3

In Stibbon's case it is of course a storm at sea that interests her, storms being another of those sublime tropes that re-occur at different times during the history of Romanticism. 

Stibbon is well worth investigating, especially if you are thinking about what scale to make your drawings and how a printmaking aspect to your work could be developed. The printmaking is of particular interest to myself, in the case of the 93 inch wide image below she has had to make the print on several sheets of fitted together Japanese paper. 

Abandoned Whaling Station, Deception Island, Woodcut, 117 x 238cm, 2006

When prints get this large you have to get inventive. In this case the image is cut using wood carving chisels from two sheets of plywood fitted together. The ink is then hand rolled on to the wood and the paper then placed on top and burnished from the back. I have made prints of this size with students at college. They do take a while to make, but the final product can be wonderful. You can vary the weight of the burnishing to achieve different tonal values and by very carefully peeling the paper away, whilst still holding it in place so that it doesn't slip, can work on re-inking and further burnishing in order to get very strong blacks. The grain of the wood can be used to good effect too, especially if you don't over ink the areas of wood that you want to get good grain quality from. 

If your idea is grand, then why not look to make that idea with ambition. 

See also: 

Drawing and printmaking