Emma Stibbon RA – Polar Regions: Sea Swell, Spert Island, Antarctica

“These stem from my recent voyages to Svalbard in the High Arctic in 2022 and the Antarctic Peninsula in 2021. The work focuses on the dramatic sea and icy coastline of these two extraordinary polar regions”

Stibbon depicts landscapes and environments undergoing dynamic change. Often working in collaboration with scientists, Stibbon researches, explores and encounters her subjects on expeditions to remote geographical regions and in urban areas, enticed by monuments to human endeavour.

An artist working exclusively on paper, in her drawings and prints there is a tensile loading to her use of materials, where each mark she draws with a brush or a pencil harnesses the forces of natural and man-made worlds. Her graphic gestures are a tactile response of place: the ash of a volcano mingles with ink on the paper or is pitted into the surface of a printing plate.

Stibbon’s work is held in international collections including UK: The Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery; Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, Bournemouth; Pallant House Gallery, Chichester; University of Chichester Collection; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, New Hall Art Collection & Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle on Tyne, New Art Gallery, Walsall. USA: San Diego University Collection, Germany: Céline & Heiner Bastian, Potsdam Museum, Berlin; Stadtmuseum, Berlin.

Born in 1962 in Münster, Germany. Stibbon studied Fine Art BA (Hons) at Goldsmiths, University of London, and Research MA Fine Art at the University of the West of England, Bristol. In 2019 she was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of Bristol. Emma Stibbon became an elected Royal Academician (RA) in 2013.