Sarah Purvey

When Sarah Purvey works in her studio it is a quiet space without the disturbance or external influence of background music or voices on the radio. She uses the time to listen, to feel and to respond to the liminal connections discovered there. The process allows the language and the rhythm of drawing to intuitively speak for her, resulting in a visceral and introspective experience shared through the responsive energy and action of drawing.

Before becoming Artist in Residence at Bath Spa University Corsham Court in 2020, Sarah's practice was primarily in ceramic using monumental sculptural vessels as her carrier. Her practice now is more evenly divided between two- and three-dimensional form, with drawing being the unifying factor between both mediums.

Talking about Sarah's work Dr Ian Massey, independent art historian, writer and curator said: "Purvey works both in clay and on paper, an interrelated 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. They are made from one of two types of clay, both containing grog, which provides additional body and emphasises materiality. One is red, and becomes black during firing; the other, named crank is paler, and retains its rather fleshy tone after leaving the kiln. Each vessel begins with a round or oval base, to which long coils of clay are pressed into place, structure built up in short bursts of intense activity. The artist strives to work meditatively and at speed, listening, feeling, responding, finding herself lost in the making, each pinch of clay equivalent to a single heartbeat. As she progresses, words and conversations surface from an internal dialogue, as though from the intermittent babble of a crossed telephone line, often prompting her to pause in order to note them down. One is struck by the idea that these fragments of language might effectively become written into the work, as inflections within the overall design. For one senses - and this becomes apparent in conversation with the artist - that there is a private language, of thought and meaning underlying the work in its entirety."

 

"Purvey has described drawing as a physically and emotionally charged act, a statement one might extend to the whole of her practice. The artist's drawings are not studies for three-dimensional pieces but works in their own right, made in mixed media on paper of various weights and textures. Multi-layered, their starting point is in dilute black gouache, applied directly from the bottle and worked over with a small roller to establish an initial broken texture. The drawings employ the whites, blacks, and greys of the works in clay, along with a wider palette of yellows, ranging from pale ochre to deep egg yolk. Occasionally another colour appears, such as an incursion of vermillion or of scribbled orange. Many are spatially complex, with partially submerged pockets and delicate traceries of darkness and light. The abstract motifs deployed echo those of the ceramics, but are more expansively gestural, many of the sheets covered edge-to-edge, so that they appear as though fragments of a larger, potentially endless script or score. The dense blackness of certain drawings is comparable to those made in tarry paint-stick by the American Richard Serra, whilst their loping calligraphy, scribbled in horizontal lines like so much automatic writing, has something in common with that of another American, the painter Cy Twombly, at his most abstract."

 

Extracts from "Boundaries" catalogue presented by Twenty Twenty gallery for her solo exhibition in 2022 written by Dr Ian Massey.

 

Born and raised in Middlesex, Sarah Purvey moved to Plymouth in 1986 to attend Plymouth College of Art.  It was there that she was introduced to clay and moved to Bath College of Higher Education completing her first degree in ceramics in 1991.

 

After a gap of nearly twenty years living and raising her family in North Wiltshire, Sarah returned to education in 2008 to undertake the Master's Programme based at Bath Spa University's Corsham Court Campus where she was Artist in Residence.

 

Key career highlights.

Study

2009 MA Ceramics, Bath School of Art & Design, Bath Spa University

1991 BA Ceramics, Bath School of Art & Design

1988 BTec Ceramics, Plymouth College of Art

 

Exhibitions

2009-2023 Since completing her MA Sarah Purvey has exhibited every year. Exhibitions have included solo shows, group shows, prizes, awards, art fairs and residencies with independent and public galleries in the UK and internationally including the USA, Holland, Germany.

 

Public Collections

2021 Pallant House Chichester: Ceramic

2021 Chippenham Museum : Hand Finished Carborundum Print

2020 Chippenham Museum : Drawing

2019 Chippenham Museum : Ceramic

2019 Swindon Museum & Art Gallery : Drawing

2017 Bath Spa University Corsham Court Collection : Ceramic

2016 Swindon Museum & Art Gallery : Ceramic

2012 Bath Spa University Corsham Court Collection : Ceramic

 

Selected Publications and Articles

2023 Contemporary British Studio Pottery- Forms of Expression : Ashley Thorpe

2022 Boundaries Solo Exhibition Catalogue essay by Dr Ian Massey

2020 Modern and Contemporary Art, Chippenham Museum Catalogue

2016 Ceramic Review Issue 282 Fresh Space Article

2016 From Where I'm Standing : Catalogue Swindon Museum and Art Gallery

2015 Inspirational Magazine : Feature by John Hopper

2014 Pallette Pages Interview : by Lisa Gray

2013 Ceramic Review Bath Abbey Hospitality Show : Review by Ian Wilson

2012 Aspect Magazine : Front cover image Ecclesiastical Annual Art & Heritage Review

2011 Museum Of International Ceramics (Mic) Faenza, presentation Mirco Denicolo