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Dolores de Sade's work is rooted in traditional landscape and natural history, but responds to the post-industrial landscape and the age of the Anthroprocene.
De Sade's work is held in many private and public collections including V&A, Government Art Collection, British Library, Royal Shakespeare Company, Royal College of Art, Ashmolean Museum, Sir John Cass School of Art, UK; Ministry of Culture, Thailand; Guanglan and Guangdong Museums, China. She currently resides in Thailand, where she is an active member of the burgeoning contemporary art scene. She is available for art consultancy and private commissions. Education MA Printmaking: Royal College of Art, 2011 BA (Hons.) Fine Art: The Sir John Cass School of Art (LMU), 2009 PhD History: University of York, 2006. BA (Hons.) History: Birkbeck College, (ULU), 2000 Grants and Awards John Ruskin Drawing Prize, UK 2014 Intaglio Printmakers Award, ELP London, 2013 Birgit Skiöld Memorial Trust Award, London 2012 Royal Etcher Award, Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers, London 2011 British Institution Award, Royal Academy, London 2011 J K Burt Award, Originals, London 2010 Ede and Ravenscroft Award, London 2010 Guangdong Museum Purchase prize, Qijiang, 2010 St Cuthbert’s Mill Award, Printmakers Council, London, 2008 American History Bursary, University of York, 2000 Solo Shows Strange Lands, 5th Base Gallery, London, August 2017 The Age of Wire and String, Pink House, Tokyo, December 2016 Patio Project, WW Gallery, London, October 2012 This Place, That Place… Whitstable, September 2012 The Complete Works of William Shakespeare and Other Stories, Whitstable, August 2011 Selected Group Shows and Performances Clifford Chance, London, April 2016 Spodki Gallery, Poland, July 2016 Impact 9, Printmaking: China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, China; October 2015 Awagami International Miniature Print Exhibition, (Award Winner) Japan, November 2015 Platform Projects, Lubrimov-Easton, Art Athena, Athens, June 2015 Goto Gallery, Ginza, Tokyo January 2015 Black and White, Artspace, London December 2014 Artists and the Uncanny, Printroom, London, June 2014 London Original Print Fair, April 2013 Galleria Ostrakon, Milan, Italy, December 2012 North House Gallery, Manningtree Essex, December 2012 BITE (invited artist), Mall Galleries, London, September 2012 London 1.0, Galerie Reitz, Cologne, September 2012 Training Nature. The Print Room, London July 2012 Kaleid Artist’s Book Fair, Art Academy, London, July 2012 Royal Society of Painter Printmakers Annual Exhibition, London, June 2012 Royal Academy Summer Show (invited artist), June 2012 London Original Print Fair, Royal Academy, April 2012 Double Take - The Art of Printmaking, Canterbury, January 2012 Bangkok Triennale Print and Drawing Show, January 2012 Hot Off the Press, Curwen Gallery, January 2012 Clifford Chance Postgraduate Printmaking Survey Exhibition, December 2011 Qijiang International Print Festival, China, November 2011 BITE, Mall Galleries, London, August 2011 Sawchestra perform Prince Achmed at Folly for a Flyover, London, July 2011 SHOW, Royal College of Art, London, July 2011 East London Printmakers, Space, London, July 2011 Spritz, Tintype Gallery at Simon and Muirhead, London, June 2011 Mailto, Drift Station Gallery, Nebraska, June 2011 Royal Academy Summer Show, May 2011 CMYOK! Café Gallery, Southwark, March 2011 The Readers Late at Barbican, London, August 2010 Originals, Mall galleries, London, February 2010 Qijang International Print Festival, China, October 2009 IMPACT, Spike Island, Bristol, September 2009 Salon 09, Matt Roberts Arts, Vyner Street, September 2009 Printmakers Council Miniature Print Exhibition: Touring UK. May 2009 The Readers and The Apathy Band. GSK, Royal Academy, London. December 2008 Kunst Tut Gutes: Autohaus Glinicke, Minden, Germany. October 2008 Mailshot. Whitstable Biennale: Whitstable, June 2008 |
Installation photo 'This Place, That Place...' Show Off Gallery. Whitstable, 2012
Professional Organizations
Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers (A.R.E) (2012-present)
Prism Print International (member 2013-present)
Open Workshop London (member 2015-present)
East London Printmakers (Chair 2011-2016, Member 2008-present)
The Sawchestra (2010-present)
The Readers (2008-2011)
Residencies:
Chiang Mai Art on Paper January-February 2017
Kawara Printmaking Laboratory February-December 2016
Joshua Tree National Park Residency October-November 2015
Kent Cultural Baton Hoo Peninsula Residency April 2012
Employment:
Chair, East London Printmakers 2012-2016
Printmaking tutor and Editioning etcher, East London Printmakers 2011-2018
Printmaking tutor/lecturer, London Metropolitan University 2012-2013
Reviews:
'These rather exquisite prints and etchings are something you really can’t convey, you do really really need to be there yourself, to be up close and personal.' The Organ, August 2017
'The find of The Other Art Fair’ Financial Times, October 18th 2013
‘Brit Arts new wave: the successors to Hirst and Emin’ The Independent, July 22nd, 2011
"Primarily focused on landscape, Dolores de Sade’s works are concerned with memory, nostalgia, myth and narrative. In the context of modern industrialisation she questions what landscape means to us today and how it is distilled through popular media.
Romantic landscapes are deconstructed by the artist as authoritative models of beauty and sublimity – as aesthetic paragons and cultural archetypes born out of nostalgia and reverie. These timeless pastoral visions, which have haunted our imaginations since the 18th century, are for de Sade problematic exemplars: idylls untouched and unspoilt by the emergence of modern industry, stand contradicted by change and technology.
Her work acknowledges that while the pastoral ideal served a transcendental purpose during the Industrial Revolution, it was in fact propagated by the very technology that revolution spawned: the advent of steel engraving in the 1820s, for book and periodical illustration popularised Romantic landscapes to the emergent ‘mass reading public’. Technology, then, may be a catalyst for a fantastical retreat – it may trigger a perverse introspection that shuts out the modern world, rejecting the mediations of popular culture. At the same time, however, it may be a handmaiden, a technical facilitator, of artistic production. Multiplied and circulated, yet a product of the imagination, the printed image is the perfect example of this paradox, and which de Sade eloquently embraces to explore the disparity of our fantasised visions and material experiences.
With the intricacy and application of her engraver forebears, in fastidious etched lines she deftly emulates the tradition of crisp topographical details and classical tropes. Vistas are framed by trees, leading the eye into bucolic worlds; bridges and stairs transport the mind to uncharted places. Yet, these are uncanny visions of low life elevated as high art. Dolores de Sade’s beautiful, Arcadian views are not set in the classical past; they represent prosaic modern subjects: motorway and A-road verges.
Exalted as sites of dreamy delectation, these typically unromantic subjects question what we know and understand about today’s blemished environments. In an age of proliferating web imagery, online aggregators and virtual mapping, such places are on the one hand highly visible – meticulously quantified and exhaustively navigated. But, on the other, they are peripheral. The mediation of the World Wide Web and satellite navigation systems classifies such environments as utilitarian constructs; we see them through a monocular lens of expedient travel. Our reliance on modern technology thus diverts our attention away from other perspectives. But such places might be re-viewed and reclaimed, as near-forgotten natural realms that once again feed the imagination, as the focus of different kinds of knowledge. The authority of route-planning is duly challenged by de Sade as she re-evaluates and sees these discarded worlds on foot, at grass-roots level. The Grand Tour of yesteryear persists with undimmed optimism in her post-industrial prospects."
Julia Beaumont-Jones, Print Department, Tate Gallery, 2014.
Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers (A.R.E) (2012-present)
Prism Print International (member 2013-present)
Open Workshop London (member 2015-present)
East London Printmakers (Chair 2011-2016, Member 2008-present)
The Sawchestra (2010-present)
The Readers (2008-2011)
Residencies:
Chiang Mai Art on Paper January-February 2017
Kawara Printmaking Laboratory February-December 2016
Joshua Tree National Park Residency October-November 2015
Kent Cultural Baton Hoo Peninsula Residency April 2012
Employment:
Chair, East London Printmakers 2012-2016
Printmaking tutor and Editioning etcher, East London Printmakers 2011-2018
Printmaking tutor/lecturer, London Metropolitan University 2012-2013
Reviews:
'These rather exquisite prints and etchings are something you really can’t convey, you do really really need to be there yourself, to be up close and personal.' The Organ, August 2017
'The find of The Other Art Fair’ Financial Times, October 18th 2013
‘Brit Arts new wave: the successors to Hirst and Emin’ The Independent, July 22nd, 2011
"Primarily focused on landscape, Dolores de Sade’s works are concerned with memory, nostalgia, myth and narrative. In the context of modern industrialisation she questions what landscape means to us today and how it is distilled through popular media.
Romantic landscapes are deconstructed by the artist as authoritative models of beauty and sublimity – as aesthetic paragons and cultural archetypes born out of nostalgia and reverie. These timeless pastoral visions, which have haunted our imaginations since the 18th century, are for de Sade problematic exemplars: idylls untouched and unspoilt by the emergence of modern industry, stand contradicted by change and technology.
Her work acknowledges that while the pastoral ideal served a transcendental purpose during the Industrial Revolution, it was in fact propagated by the very technology that revolution spawned: the advent of steel engraving in the 1820s, for book and periodical illustration popularised Romantic landscapes to the emergent ‘mass reading public’. Technology, then, may be a catalyst for a fantastical retreat – it may trigger a perverse introspection that shuts out the modern world, rejecting the mediations of popular culture. At the same time, however, it may be a handmaiden, a technical facilitator, of artistic production. Multiplied and circulated, yet a product of the imagination, the printed image is the perfect example of this paradox, and which de Sade eloquently embraces to explore the disparity of our fantasised visions and material experiences.
With the intricacy and application of her engraver forebears, in fastidious etched lines she deftly emulates the tradition of crisp topographical details and classical tropes. Vistas are framed by trees, leading the eye into bucolic worlds; bridges and stairs transport the mind to uncharted places. Yet, these are uncanny visions of low life elevated as high art. Dolores de Sade’s beautiful, Arcadian views are not set in the classical past; they represent prosaic modern subjects: motorway and A-road verges.
Exalted as sites of dreamy delectation, these typically unromantic subjects question what we know and understand about today’s blemished environments. In an age of proliferating web imagery, online aggregators and virtual mapping, such places are on the one hand highly visible – meticulously quantified and exhaustively navigated. But, on the other, they are peripheral. The mediation of the World Wide Web and satellite navigation systems classifies such environments as utilitarian constructs; we see them through a monocular lens of expedient travel. Our reliance on modern technology thus diverts our attention away from other perspectives. But such places might be re-viewed and reclaimed, as near-forgotten natural realms that once again feed the imagination, as the focus of different kinds of knowledge. The authority of route-planning is duly challenged by de Sade as she re-evaluates and sees these discarded worlds on foot, at grass-roots level. The Grand Tour of yesteryear persists with undimmed optimism in her post-industrial prospects."
Julia Beaumont-Jones, Print Department, Tate Gallery, 2014.
