Sarah Woods is a painter and printmaker. Her inspiration comes directly from the landscape and the Cornwall coastline, with the added influences of process and a method of working slowly by hand. Spending extended amounts of time in the ocean and out along the coast, her focus is on the immediate, the colours and energy of the landscape that unfold later into studies in her studio, whether line etchings or paintings.
My newest collection is drawn to the landscape of west Cornwall, capturing the forms of the land with a palette inspired by the coastline. Each painting translates a feeling of being in the landscape - a sense of calm, an endlessness, and a space to be still.
The studio is a serene space and an extension of how it feels to me to be within the landscape, gathering observations and allowing inspiration to unfold into paint on canvas. These works draw from a palette of deeper hues and rich shades of the land and sea, focusing on a shade of dark blue gathered from deep water off the west coast. Studies of movement are translated through my process in the studio. Working large scale means my body moves around the piece, either painting the canvas on the floor or the wall, and my intuitive movements and gestures give a feeling of stillness or motion.
Compositions are balanced by the reflection of light across the water and the contrasting light and dark of sea and sky, capturing the tonal warmth of colours side by side and the heaviness of blue sky above the land. The changing seasons are so clear, living slowly with the pace of nature - the light moves differently across the water, brings more colour to the sky, and inspires my palette to change. The smallest signs of the changing seasons have inspired the collection Spring Tides.