Sarah Gillespie – I saw the Moon, wandering asleep among the reeds

“Against the optical grey of a now backlit France Woods, Goat Willows fan out, each of their fine dark lines offering up a last few perfect ovals of bronze. Opposite me the bark of a young sycamore is smooth and umber, the opposing symmetry of her buds as yet un-wrecked by salt and time. The parent tree to my right, chaotic & dark reaches out to a graceful Ash – the same grey green as the far woods I note – but darker. In her branches a robin, effortlessly singing the spaces between things. Glancing down at the open page in my lap, I despair at my pencil lines, pathetically tethered attempts to outline and describe. What am I doing here?

I no longer draw to record or gather information, the great privilege of drawing, as John Berger has said, is that a drawing of a tree is not a tree, nor is it me, nor even an expression of me. It is a drawing of a tree being looked at. It contains the experience of looking.” SG

About Sarah Gillespie

Sarah Gillespie was born in Winchester in 1963. She studied 16th & 17th century methods and materials at the Atelier Neo-Medici in Paris and then read Fine Art at Pembroke College, Oxford (BFA Ruskin School of Drawing & Fine Art). On leaving She was awarded the Elizabeth Greenshield Foundation International Award for figurative art and has had a successful career as a painter. In 2016 she was elected a member of the Royal West of England Academy. Sarah Gillespie makes mezzotint prints, an old, slow and painstaking method that produces unique velvet blacks and soft tones. Her work encourages us to refocus our gaze toward the everyday and the overlooked; moths, blackbirds and winter-suns.

Her work is held in public and private collections including: Victoria and Albert Museum, London; National Portrait Gallery; LondonVictoria Gallery Bath; Government Offices for the South West, UK; Royal West of England Academy; Sharpham Trust; Chatsworth House; Museum of Fine Arts, Yekaterinburg, Russia.

Current Exhibition

Sarah Gillespie: Birded and Eyed
Kestle Barton, Cornwall TR12 6HU
20th June – 6th September 2026
website

‘Kestle Barton presents  ‘Birded and Eyed’, a second solo exhibition by Sarah Gillespie, following her exhibition at Kestle Barton in 2020.  the show brings together new works in mezzotint and drawing, developed through her close observation of the woods, meadows and night-life around both Kestle Barton and her home in Devon.’