Renowned printmaker Sarah Kirby's new body of work inspired by Yorkshire Sculpture Park

“I have known about the Sculpture Park almost since it first started back in the 1970s and it is a place I really love,” says Kirby.

“Essentially my work comes out of places and spaces that mean something to me, so this was a wonderful opportunity – not only the offer of an exhibition but also to be given a reason to really get to know the Park in an intense way and to spend a significant amount of time there.”

As one of the UK’s foremost linocut printmakers, Kirby takes inspiration from British public spaces, buildings, gardens, flora and fauna. Her artworks often begin from being outside in nature, observing and recording what she sees.

“I like to visit places over a period of time if I can,” she says. “I will go somewhere with an initial idea taking my sketchbook and I will pause, look and draw and no matter how strong my idea was at the beginning it will always be slightly different by the end.

“I also take photographs on my phone and then I go back to my studio and spend time with the drawings. They are records of my thoughts at the time and they help me to compose an image.

“Sometimes I feel that I need more information about this and I will then go back for a slightly more purposeful visit, which will often yield more ideas. That was really what I was doing through the months that I was visiting the Sculpture Park.”

Kirby’s starting point was to look first at some of the built features of the Park such as the Chapel and the Camellia House, both of which are represented in the new body of work, and then she went on to explore areas of the Park that were less familiar to her.

“Although I had been to YSP a lot before, for this project I was going two or three times a month, so I was finding parts of the Park that I didn’t really know much about,” she says.

“I hadn’t gone into the woods very much before, for example. I found places I didn’t know very well and then read about them, so it was constantly developing. It’s a big space and has lots of different aspects to it – I loved learning more about the history, the views and the intimate areas.”

Having visited across the seasons and in all weathers and light conditions, Kirby found that new things revealed themselves to her.

“It was really interesting,” she says. “At certain times of year, I got a completely fresh perspective on something or a new vista appeared that had been hidden by foliage.”

Kirby grew up next door to Cambridge University Botanic Garden, where her father was a plant physiologist and he inspired her to explore and interact with nature.

“Both my parents were scientists and they were looking very carefully at things and recording them, which is what I am doing but in a different way,” she says. “I was interested in drawing from an early age – I was definitely a child who always had a sketchbook and pencil with me.”

The natural world continues to be a source of great inspiration for her. “I use those moments in nature to feed my spirituality and my creativity,” she says. “That is hugely important to me.”

Kirby says that making the body of work for the exhibition has been an inspiring experience. “It has been really exciting and I am still making a lot of work based on the YSP.

Like all the best projects it has also led me in new directions, so I am using slightly different colours and formats. I love the idea that these works might make a connection with people. There might be a memory that is prompted by looking at one of the prints or that might encourage someone to go and visit or revisit that place or building or sculpture.”

Sarah Kirby: A Printmaker’s Landscape runs at the YSP Centre, Yorkshire Sculpture Park until February 22, 2025. All the works on display are for sale. ysp.org.uk