For many years, climate change has been a pressing concern among scientists and environmentalists, especially regarding its significant impact on sea level rise and the transformation of landscapes and environments in polar regions, notably the Arctic and Antarctic.
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| Stibbon's Dark Horizon, 2023 |
Emma Stibbon, a prominent contemporary British artist renowned for her poignant landscape drawings and prints, has dedicated her artistic exploration to themes of environmental change and the human footprint on natural landscapes.
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| Emma Stibbon conducting fieldwork in Svalbard, 2022. Photo by Tristan Duke. Stibbon had travelled for many years on board ships to the Polar regions where she recorded the seascapes, vast ice fields and rubular bergs through ink drawings and photography to capture the ever-changing landscapes. After her return to her studio, she develops these sketches into large scale drawings or prints. |
Now, Stibbon's profound observations find expression in her latest exhibition, "Melting Ice / Rising Tides," currently showing at the Towner Art Gallery in Eastbourne. This exhibition invites viewers to immerse themselves in Stibbon's reflections on the warming polar regions and their consequential effects on the shifting coastlines of the United Kingdom.
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| Stibbon's pinhole photographic prints on bromide paper showing melting ice from her recent expeditions to the High Arctic's Svalbard and Antarctica's Weddell Sea. Photo by Lucia Carpio. |
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| In Stibbon's works she also captures rock falls, beach closures and necessary erosion mitigation in the UK's southern shores, including the closure of Hope Gap steps (Seaford) as in the image above. Photo by Lucia Carpio. |
Stibbon's artistic vision is driven by a blend of reverence for nature's grandeur and concern for our planet's uncertain future. Through large-scale paintings and prints inspired by her recent expeditions to the High Arctic's Svalbard and Antarctica's Weddell Sea, she weaves a narrative of coastal dynamics, metamorphosis, and erosion.
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| Stibbon's Ice Floe 2023 |
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| Emma Stibbon's Cliff Fall, 2024, installation in the "Melting Ice / Rising Tides," exhibition in Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, East Sussex, UK. |
The exhibition's centerpiece, "Cliff Fall, 2024," is a breathtaking installation—an 8-meter-wide lifelike drawing of a Sussex cliff face. Accompanied by a reconstruction depicting the gradual erosion and cascading chalk rocks into the gallery space, it confronts viewers with the visceral impact of coastal degradation.
Cliff erosion is an increasingly frequent phenomenon along the UK coastline, particularly evident in the South of England, including East Sussex. Driven by natural forces such as wave action, tidal currents, and wind erosion, the relentless assault of waves on the shoreline gradually reshapes the land, a process heightened by storms and high tides.
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| Emma Stibbon with her Breaker painting, 2023, now on show at Towner Eastbourne. Photo by Lucia Carpio. |
On the wall facing the "Cliff Fall" installation is "Breaker, 2023," a painting vividly capturing the assault of waves upon the shoreline. Positioned amidst crashing waters and the looming, precarious cliff, viewers are enveloped in an immersive experience that underscores the relentless power of coastal dynamics.
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| Stibbon's Beachy Head 2024 |
Stibbon expressed her desire to connect the drawings and prints created during her expeditions to Antarctica and across the Barents Sea to Svalbard in the High Arctic with the climate-related changes occurring along the UK coastline.
The Towner Gallery is located in Eastbourne, renowned for its proximity to the iconic Seven Sisters cliffs, a landscape increasingly vulnerable to cliff failure due to wave erosion and extreme weather events. Stibbon extensively explored and walked the Sussex coastline, documenting landmarks such as Beachy Head and Birling Gap to create comparative studies that illustrate the extent of shoreline and cliff retreat.
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| Photo by Lucia Carpio |
During her fieldwork, Stibbon also collected materials to incorporate into her artwork, using salt and seawater in her wave drawings and ground chalk for her cliff drawings, thereby emphasizing the intrinsic connections between materials and place.
Also on show in the "Melting Ice / Rising Tides," exhibition at the Towner are archive paintings of the East Sussex coastline, including Beachy Head and Cuckmere, by celebrated artists Eric Ravilious (1903 - 1942), Eric Slater (1896-1963) and Albert Goodwin (1845-1932) from the gallery's own collection to illustrate the changes of the region over the years.
Melting Ice/Rising Tides by Emma Stibbon is on show at Towner Eastbourne until September 15th 2024.
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