Thick Abstractions: Printmaking by Sarah James
Pattern 2, embossing and relief
Printmaker Sarah James’ practice is informed by, and overlaps with, her background in painting. The artist creates thick abstractions with an eye for geometry and colour.
Santa Cruz, stone lithograph print
I like the way Sarah manages to achieve such a distinct texture in many of her artworks. The artist has a love for squares and rectangles, and is inspired by early Welsh quilts, which often featured intricate geometric designs. I definitely see this inspiration shining through in Sarah’s print works, which often layer raised patterns over monochromatic fields of color, occasionally breaking off into stark, black and white sections of curling lines.
Her paintings, in mixed media and watercolor, showcase the same appreciation for parallelograms, though they tend to operate on a much looser visual language. Sarah’s painted works focus on the interaction of fields of color, and the artist often selects beautiful, deep blue tones for the larger part of her works. Some of them remind me a little of the art of Jeanie Gebhart, and her large, flat strips of paint.
