Art and Environment: Emma Stibbon's "Melting Ice / Rising Tides" exhibition at Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne reflects on climate change

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Stibbon's Ice Floe 2023

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.

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.

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.

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.

Art and Culture: Towner Eastbourne's new Spring exhibitions focus on three creative British Artists

After the resounding success of hosting the 2023 Turner Prize, Towner Art Gallery in Eastbourne is gearing up to unveil its latest Spring exhibitions, featuring the works of three talented British artists starting this May.

Towner Art Gallery in Eastbourne launches "Melting Ice / Rising Tide"
featuring Emma Stibbon's extensive exploration of polar ice melt.  The exhibition, running from May 9 to September 15, 2024,aims to bridge the perceived gap between remote polar extremes and our immediate local environment. 
Photo by Lucia Carpio

Towner Eastbourne

Making her debut with a large-scale showcase at a prestigious UK institution is Emma Stibbon. Her exhibition, titled "Melting Ice / Rising Tides," delves into the profound beauty and vulnerability of our planet, specifically focusing on the warming polar regions and its repercussions on the UK coastline.  Stibbon's extensive exploration of polar ice melt, culminating in her exhibition running from May 9 to September 15, 2024, aims to bridge the perceived gap between remote polar extremes and our immediate local environment.

Emma Stibbon's Dark Horizon, 2023

At the heart of the exhibition lies "Cliff Fall, 2024" a monumental wall drawing and installation portraying the increasing occurrence of rock falls that are an increasingly common occurrence on the UK coastline.  The breathtaking installation—an 8-meter-wide lifelike drawing of a Sussex cliff face - is 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.

Emma Stibbon's Cliff Fall, 2024, installation at Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne.
Photo by Lucia Carpio

Emma Stibbon standing amidst her Cliff Fall, 2004 installation at Towner Art Gallery.
Photo by Lucia Carpio

Accompanying this centerpiece are Stibbon’s evocative large-scale drawings and prints, depicting vast ice fields and towering bergs, inspired by her recent expeditions to Svalbard and the Weddell Sea, Antarctica.  Facing the Cliff Fall installation is Breaker, Stibbon's 2023 work using ink, sea salt and Eastbourne sea water on paper.

Emma Stibbon with her painting Breaker, 2023, in ink, sea salt and Eastbourne sea water on paper.
Photo by Lucia Carpio

Through a narrative of coastal dynamics and transformation, the exhibition offers a visceral reminder of the interconnectedness between global climate shifts and our familiar landscapes.

The exhibition’s narrative around coastal movement, change and erosion, will be completed with a range of new drawings of the sea and coastline of Sussex.

For a number of years Stibbon has been observing and recording the precariousness of the polar ice sheets and glaciers and the profound effect that ice melt is having on global sea level rise.  Melting Ice/Rising Tides, running from May 9 to September 15 2024,  will be a culmination of this work, making important connections between the apparent remote extremes of our planet and our local environment. 

The show will create an immersive experience for the viewer, aiming to act as a stark reminder that the seemingly remote events of polar ice sheet melt is directly connected with the changes that we are witnessing in our local, more familiar UK landscape.  The theme of "Melting Ice / Rising Tides," strikes a poignant chord given Eastbourne's coastal setting, nestled amidst the Beachy Head and South Downs National Park, where parts of its coastline is experiencing gradual erosion into the English Channel.

The work of another artist, Maria Amidu, featured from May 4 to September 8 2024, under "Future Collect Commission in the perpetual back and forth," explores the intricate interplay between paper and text. Her installation, "26,778,780 minutes," comprising laser-etched handmade abaca fibre paper, prompts contemplation on the concept of 'desire lines.' Audience participation becomes integral to the artwork's experience, as viewers are invited to interact with the prints, reflecting on fragility and collective care within a public gallery setting.  Future Collect is a three-year programme designed to create a dynamic new model to transform the culture of commissioning and collecting within museums.

Maria Amidu

Finally, Florence Peake presents "Factual Actual: Ensemble," a groundbreaking interdisciplinary installation showcased from May 9 to June 16, 2024, accompanied by performances on June 1st and 2nd. Known for her innovative fusion of choreography and visual art, Peake challenges traditional notions of painting and gallery space. Through a series of performances, Peake animates her towering canvases, creating a dynamic dialogue between movement, sound, and materiality. The monumental floor-to-ceiling painting, "Ensemble," serves as a testament to Peake's collaborative ethos, crafted in partnership with various community groups, embodying a rich tapestry of collective expression.

Florence Peake

Re-interpreting and expanding on a performance at the National Gallery in London in 2021, FACTUAL ACTUAL presents seven towering paintings on unstretched canvases that levitate above a reflective dance floor. The canvases will be draped like carcasses, waiting to be animated. Five dancers using a rig and pulley system will hoist, lower, collapse, fold and drag the paintings throughout the performances. Shifting between flat and sculptural forms, the paintings create a cacophony of sound, a sea-like sonic soundscape live in the gallery.  A 45m long, floor-to-ceiling frieze-style painting, Ensemble, envelops the gallery’s walls and the viewer at Towner Eastbourne. Respected for her unusual approach and non hierarchical process, Peake often works with a multitude of collaborators. This new painting was created through a series of workshops held at Southwark Park Galleries, London, in November 2022. Working with some of Southwark Park Galleries’ regular community groups – over 55s, young people and families – participants were invited to mark the canvas with Peake through their collective movements, which Peake then further developed in her studio over a period of three months. 

Images courtesy of Towner Eastbourne.