Emma Stibbon RA – Mojave Desert Night

Emma Stibbon RA was artist in residence for the Grand Canyon National Parks in 2019 and Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park in 2016. Her new intaglio and hand coloured prints include  ’Salt Flats, Badwater Basin’, ‘Road to Death Valley’ and ‘Boom and Bust’. Each depicts landscapes and environments undergoing dynamic change. A British Royal Academician, she often works in collaboration with international scientists to research and explore her subjects.

Mojave Desert Night depicts the rich, dark blue desert night sky. Untouched by the effects of light pollution the milky way of stars frame the desert cacti silhouetted against the night sky. Stibbon explains My interest in geological transformation and immersive landscapes that offer massive scale has taken me on several research trips to the Americas. Encountering the infinite horizons of the American mid-west put a perspective on my existence and remains imprinted on my memory.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Emma 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 endeavor.

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.