Bibelot: a small object of curiosity. Sarah Battle’s exhibition of collages, paper-cuts and digital and traditional prints explores the cultures of collecting, collectors and collections. This newly-created body of work refabricates and celebrates small treasuries of household ornamentation.
This exhibition brings Sarah’s recent works together in a variety of scale and media. The subject matter arises from her personal collections and interests, and from the ways other people have created unique groupings of objects through their distinct visual tastes.
These might sometimes be encountered in books but are more often found in international online communities, with their shared dialogue, visibility and generous knowledge-exchange. The objects that capture Sarah’s interests are the odd, the eccentric or the extraordinary rather than the familiar. Their scope is broad, from pin cushions to tin toys, and they are often accompanied by curious creatures and birds.
Sarah’s working methods include collage, drawing, painting, paper-cutting, stencilling, monoprinting, linoprinting, drypoint and digital printing. Her background in printmaking and textile design have equipped her with fluid skills in the media of print. There is invariably an assemblage of methods in a single piece of work.
Many of her motifs are made at a size no bigger than a thumbnail, each pieced together from a multiplicity of tiny cut-out components. Sarah has an enduring interest in vintage advertising design, billheads and typefaces. These elements are visible in the printed ephemera she employs as a collage resource. Incidental patterns occur from the snippets of old receipt books.
Unexpected textures arise from the dotted tones of early commercial printing. Fragments of letterpress, typographic and hand-written words add text to the texture. Through the manipulation of scale in Sarah’s larger digital prints these contrasting components gain significance in their own right. These throw-away pieces of paper are given new permanence in Sarah’s artworks.
In the prints and collages exhibited in Bibelot, juxtapositions and visual discourses arise between diverse objects who share the same page. The exhibition is a celebration of these disparities, made harmonious by the collector’s and the artist’s eye.
Profile
1984 Foundation Course, Rochdale College of Art
1987 BA(Hons) Printed Textiles at Camberwell / Central Schools of Art
1988 Post-Graduate Diploma in Printmaking, Camberwell School of Art
1991 MA Printmaking, Royal College of Art
1987-2018 Member of First Eleven Design Studio designing furnishing fabrics and greetings cards for an international clientele
