sadie tierney news

Academician Candidates’ Exhibition 2023

09 September – 29 October 2023

Shortlist of ten Academician Candidates, including Sadie Tierney exhibiting a selection of recent works alongside the Annual Open Exhibition. 

Admission is free. This exhibition runs alongside the 170 Annual Open Exhibition

RWA, Queen’s Road, Clifton Bristol BS8 1PX Open Tuesday – Saturday 9.30 – 5pm, Sunday 10-5pm

Scandes, woodcut, 56 x 36cm, edition of 20

“20 Concepts in Woodblock Printmaking” by Merlyn Chesterman and Rod Nelson, published by Crowood Books ISBN 978-0-7198-4217-7

 A newly launched, comprehensive and fascinating book featuring many artists and approaches to the medium of woodblock. 

I’m honoured to have my woodcut Lake Bled included, in the chapter about memory, page 88. 

A bright new Group Exhibition from 27th May 2023. Featuring more than 60 artworks by Prudence Ainslie, Amy-Jane Blackhall, Neil Bousfield, Ian Chamberlain, Eileen Cooper RA, Lucy Farley, Paul Furneaux RSA, Sarah Gillespie, Sara Lee, Katherine Jones RA, Natasha Michaels, Nana Shiomi, Sadie Tierney and Emma Stibbon RA.

Rabley Gallery, Marlborough, Wiltshire SN8 2LW

This new series of watercolours by Sadie Tierney are of a remote bay on the most southerly tip of the Isle of Wight. In 1882 William Spindler, an eccentric German industrialist, built a harbour there. However the substantial seawall, later called Spindler’s Folly, was built on unstable under-cliff and soon storms and land movements broke it up. Scattered forms of the failed harbour are still visible, mixed amongst the natural rocks of the coastline. 

Beyond the Sunset, 46×60 cm

Break, Break, Break, on thy cold grey Stones, 65 x 45 cm

The Tender Grace of a Day, 65 x 45 cm

The Royal West of England Academy 169 Annual Open Exhibition

This year’s selectors include Academicians’ President, Fiona Robinson PRWA, RWA Academicians; Sarah Gillespie, Dorcas Casey, Nicholas Turner and Hamish Young, alongside Mark Golder (collector and benefactor), Sue Hubbard (Art Critic, poet and novelist) and invited artist, Matthew Burrows.

Very grateful to be included in the show with three woodcuts, not least because this is one of my favourite galleries, with a vibrant varied programme and historic record dating back 168 years. 

169 Annual Open Exhibition 

Royal West of England Academy, Queen’s Road, Clifton Bristol BS8 1PX

 8 October – 8 January 2023

August Bank Holiday weekend sees Binnel Studios opening its doors to the public again for the annual open studios and exhibition, in the former glass studios, Old Park Road, St Lawrence, on the south coast of the Isle of Wight.

This year’s event is a great opportunity to meet the latest artist to join Binnel Studios – painter and printmaker, Sadie Tierney – as well as see new work by the artists; Molly Attrill, Matthew Chambers, Jane Cox, David Firmstone (at his Orchid House studio), Sue Paraskeva, Sadie Tierney, Amanda Wheeler and Celia Wilkinson.

Sadie Tierney has two new woodcuts on the walls of this year’s Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in London. Both are woodcuts printed at Binnel Studios on her dutch printing press. 

Tierney works in a tradition of English landscape painter/printmakers, taking sketches of places where form is linked to emotion, and interpreting them through distinctive colour and line. 

Recent work include large canvasses of mountains, carousels and ships at night, with lit up windows and multi-coloured skies, reflected in the waters around them. Expect to see hand made original prints and artist proofs alongside larger canvasses at her studio. “I love welcoming visitors to Binnel Studios for this annual event – it’s a peaceful, beautiful place to work and a great community of artists”

Trained at the Royal College of Art, and recently represented at Art Basel Miami and London Art Fair, previous selected solo exhibitions include Flowers East Gallery, Rabley Gallery and Eton College.

Her work is represented in numerous public collections including Imperial Health Charity, The Bronx Museum of the Arts (New York), Gdansk Museum (Poland) and The Royal West of England Academy, along with private collections worldwide. 

Spears Magazine, 26 April 2019 Adam Dant 

“Here are some of the prints which caught my ‘printmakers’ eye at this years London Original Print Fair. Rabley Gallery Sadie Tierney. RA New York Series Unique Woodcut block Monoprints

“Taking the most ‘rudimentary’ medium of woodblock printing to the top of Gotham’s skyscrapers, Sadie Tierney’s compelling interpretations of the well-worn sight of The Chrysler and Empire State buildings display an ease of expression which really embodies that exciting jolt of surprise everyone gets when confronted by majestic Manhattan for the first time. Her prints are colourfully and selectively ‘inked’ in a fashion according to the changing light viewed from her vantage point atop the Rockerfeller Centre, making each a unique prospect of Manhattan over the course of a working day.

“The deep white lines that define the shapes and cursory detail of New York’s sentinel landmarks are achieved using the same kind of ‘drilling’ tool on her woodblocks that the builders in that famous black and white photo who sits in a line on high rise girder eating their packed lunches would have used.

“The same medium of woodcut printing or ‘relief printing’  (whereby the raised surface of a sheet of timber, areas of which the artist wishes to remain blank, revealing the paper between the ‘inked image has chiseled’ away) can, as Sadie Tierney’s prints are testament, reveal the most rudimentary qualities of printmaking as an art form.”

The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2021 is open until 2 January 2022. This year on the walls I have Norge-San Draumr, woodcut, 168x 100cm, edition of 7 & Bleiker Fjord, woodcut, 56x38cm, edition of 20 both in room 5. Also this year the RA made a reproduction print of one of my previous submissions for sale in the shop, all proceeds to the RA Schools.

Thank you to Emma Stibbon for including my prints in her beautifully curated room, and thanks and congratulations to Yinke Shonibare for a marvellous show.

The small prints were made at Omega Printmakers in Portsmouth, and the large woodcut was hand printed at Rabley Contemporary Drawing Centre, with thanks for help from the team Meryl and George.

Solo exhibition @rableygallery

“The Mountains are Calling”

20 November- 18 December 2021

“Mountains are so often beguiling. They signal the evolution from the ordinary earth, to the extraordinary world, and the return therefrom. These are the sacred monuments that inspire the work of Sadie Tierney.

Amidst distinctive and expressive terrains, Sadie is keen to include a human element. This is to inspire themes of destination, contemplation and emotional connection to nature on a grand scale.

Rabley Gallery is thrilled to exhibit a new collection of Sadie Tierney’s paintings and prints ‘The mountains are calling and I must go’ quoting the pioneering C19th naturalist John Muir. Her works range across both mediums and mountain ranges capturing the light and atmosphere of the Alps.” Rabley Gallery

Showing a selection of unique works on paper – paintings and monoprints

A three part commission for the newly designed building of the Admiral Lord Nelson School in Portsmouth

I was commissioned to make a floor design for the staff and student entranceways to the new building of the Admiral Lord Nelson School in Portsmouth. The floor vinyl in the older building was designed by an artist called John Patsalides 30 years ago and was based on a river as a metaphor. For my design, I wanted breaking waves on a beach to link with his work, but to place the new floor in 2021 here in Portsmouth, England’s only island city. I used my drawings of waves from Southsea beach to create a design for the different shaped entrances. The apprentice who laid the first floor many years ago, returned as company manager to lay this specially fabricated new floor. 
The second part of the commission is a large scale woodcut. This is installed in the entranceway, is based on drawings made from the shore of Langstone Harbour to the east of the school, facing Bow Hill. The drawings were carved into wood blocks in my Hotwalls studio at the mouth of Portsmouth Harbour, and printed by hand at Omega Print Studios, also in Portsmouth. The finished print hangs on a West facing wall, so the viewer faces east towards Langstone Harbour. It is framed in a museum grade hardwood frame, and glazed in perspex.

The final part of the commission is a 20 metre mural painted in a beautifully designed leafy courtyard on a north facing wall. The viewer faces in the direction of Southsea Beach, the Solent and beyond, which is the inspiration for the painting. I tried to include as many features of the landscape as possible; sea forts, boats, ships, sea swimmers, and beach vegetation. The sea kale in particular is unique to this kind of habitat, and very reminiscent of the view. I have used predominantly school house colours (cyan, bright green, purple and grey) in this woodcut. During the project it was great to meet the students who helped direct the development of the project. 

The three artworks, when taken together are intended to create an uplifting sense of place for the students and staff, hopefully enabling a connection to the unique location of their beautifully designed school. Many thanks to the architect Andrew Malbon for his vision and skill.

Following The National Museum in Gdańsk acquiring two of my paintings, I was delighted to receive this beautiful catalogue in the post. The publication accompanies “The Collection”, an exhibition of 140 works, acquired through the Basil Alkazzi and Halima Nałęcz Fund. Grateful for the generous comments in the accompanying text, and to be included in such an important public gallery collection alongside a mind blowing line up of artists including #davidhockney #nanashiomi #isabelyoungart #bazilalkazzi #simonwillems #rennytait #paulhuxley #lucyjones #elizabethfrink #kayedonachie #matthewburrows #joetilson #grahamcrowley #elizabethblackadder

The Collection, Basil Alkazzi’s Gift to the National Museum in Gdańsk

Départ à la Nuit, acrylic on paper, 38 x 56cm, 2014

Solent Sunset, acrylic and pencil on paper, 64 x 87cm, 2014