MEET THE MEMBER – Sarah-Cate Blake
Featured image: Joyful Sea by Sarah-Cate Blake
When did you start painting?
I’ve always enjoyed painting and I’ve kept some of my paintings from as far back as 5 years old when I won a prize for a very jolly clown! Seriously, I trained as a sculptor at Bretton Hall at The Yorkshire Sculpture Park, and used painting and drawing to support my degree work. I have always explored and travelled and have made sketches in pencil and watercolour. I found that I was more and more interested in watercolour painting from 1993 and started to learn more about this medium and fell in love with it.
How long have you been a Member of the SEAW?
Since 2022
What attracted you to apply?
The friendship of fellow watercolourists and the amazing talent you all have inspires me to try different techniques or observe through different ‘lenses’
What subject matter do you like to paint?
Landscape and seascape. I walk and like very much to be in nature. It’s very much part of my life and soul. Without being in natural spaces I feel very disconnected. I also love being in the sea. I come from a family of sailors, although I prefer to swim and kayak.
Do you have a preference for a painting style? If so, can you describe it?
Calligraphic and gestural work. I use Japanese brushes and watercolours. I find the focused mindset is akin to meditating which I also have practised for about 22 years.
Are you a pure watercolourist? Or do you include other mediums in your paintings?
I use gold ink, gold leaf and occasionally a hint of white titanium acrylic. But ultimately, I am a bit of a purist.
Where do you paint? At home? Studio? Outside?
I am lucky to have a home studio which is an east facing room with really lovely daylight and a view on to my garden. I enjoy listening to the radio or music as I paint and I’m often kept company by my cats. I do most of my painting as sketches while out walking or lolling around in the meadows at the Magogs. Last May I painted each Tuesday at the same time making a scroll of the birdsong at the Magog Downs – creating a painted soundscape in watercolour. I worked on this project with a friend, Emma Chopourian, a composer who studied with Olivier Messiaen and she kindly transcribed a selection from his birdsong compositions ‘Catalogues des oiseaux’ onto the finished scroll.
Which artists inspire you and why?
I am secretly in love with JMW Turner but don’t tell him. Contemporary artists I enjoy include Fiona Rae RA, Japanese calligraphy, the French artist and performative painter Fabienne Virdier and the contemporary artist Murakami, because he shakes up the Rimpa traditions in Japanese art, and he is fun. But I’m also inspired by poetry and music, ranging from “Four Quartets” by T S Eliot, to the early choral baroque pieces by Verdi and the contemporary composer David Lang. I am a yogi and mediator and find that both help me synchronise my mind, body and spirit as part of my visual arts practice. I would describe my work as trying to find the balance between space and colour. The edges of a brush mark are quite beautiful. I try to represent a thought or evocative experience – as an experience arises and I invite you to join me. I use one or two brushes and control a wet on wet wash with saturated calligraphy, a limited palette and a one brush stroke. It’s painting jazz!
What galleries do you like to visit?
Of course the Fitzwilliam Museum where I work as The Education Officer (a job I really enjoy and get to see so many artworks behind the scenes and meet the most knowledgeable and inspiring people). I loved a trip to Barcelona to the Miro Gallery. I enjoy the British Museum (where I love the Japanese Galleries) and I love the Tokyo National Museum of Art.
Where would you really like to travel to and paint? What is it about this place that inspires you?
I absolutely loved visiting Japan in 2018 and would like to extend my travels there and into South Korea, Cambodia and Vietnam – I’m hatching a plan to visit next year. I loved travelling the bullet train and painting the views from the train. I’d also like to travel to the USA to see the amazing geology of California’s national parks.
What is your favourite colour to paint with?
Blue in all its wonderful hues, shades and depths of shimmering beauty. Definitely blue.
What is your favourite brush?
A Chinese brush with a bamboo shaft that my brother brought me on a trip to Hong Kong.
Do you have any artistic successes or achievements that you would like to share with readers?
This is tricky as I’m quite self-effacing – I’ve been working as an artist since the early 1990’s and have met some incredible people and travelled to some beautiful places – I guess my achievement is to practice with an open heart and an evolving practice. I was delighted to win the Daniel Smith prize at Awash 2022 for imaginative use of texture for the painting ‘Waves of Hope’. I sell work through Saatchi, Atherton Green Art and the Rochester contemporary Arts Centre, New York. I’ve collaborated with the Yoko Ono project ‘ARISING’ culminating in an exhibition in Reykjavik, Iceland. I was selected by the curator and artist Susan Aldworth to create work for an exhibition in London, York and Zurich. Tthese were collaborative projects in textiles over several years. I am also very pleased with the series of paintings I created for women’s sexual health and education for Birmingham Women’s Hospital.
Currently I’m showing as part of ‘the Art of Grieving’ at St Albans Gallery.
My future thoughts? I’d very much like to have an exhibition in Japan – I’d like to show how I’ve been inspired by the Edo Rinpa artworks and how I’ve blended these with my own western contemporary practice. I think that when it works it can be poetry, sublime. I guess that my fascination is that liminal space.
What is the best piece of advice you were ever given about art?
It is a practice, so keep practising.