SARAH STATON
Archival inkjet print with UV varnish on JPP Matte 330gsm
42 × 25·5 cm
edition #10 of 25
 
Sarah Staton’s work takes an aesthetic twist on design. Increasingly known for her public commissioned sculptures she has been an active curator and publisher. Her sculptural belvedere Edith and Hans (2016) sits in a high meadow at Bristol University. Steve, a monument to all ‘Steves’ now and going forward into the future, was commissioned for the 2014 Folkestone Triennial, where it looks out prophetically towards mainland Europe. The tactile qualities of materials are played with alongside visual ideas, colours and formal relationships. References to politics and history float effortlessly amongst design and aesthetic considerations. Staton uses the richness of the English language for invention, quotation and appropriation.
For the Portfolio Staton brings the tulip forward into the digital era with an emoji print — aesthetics subsumed into liquid crystal. Some two hundred years on from the English cartoonist George Cruickshank’s incisive wit — in the age of rapid-fire politics by tweet — tech and statesmanship blur into one. The transitory nature of the real-space cut flower is represented in the contemporary language of emoticon exchange: six pink tulips harvested from the ether, preserved in a screen-sized print.