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.”
