Sarah Butterfield’s expressive paintings in Sarah Butterfield: Dusk and Dawn in The Solent explored the changing quality of light and colour at dusk and dawn over The Solent, Hampshire. The Solent is the body of water that separates the Isle of Wight from the mainland of England, along the Hampshire coast.
Sarah Butterfield: Dusk and Dawn in The Solent
Sarah Butterfield takes the early ferry from Portsmouth to the Isle of Wight to capture the colours in the sky just before the sun rises; and at dusk, she looks across Langstone Harbour towards Portsmouth as the sun sets behind the gleaming lights of the city.
Sarah is an award-winning artist who, inspired by Impressionist painter, Claude Monet in his series of paintings of Rouen Cathedral or haystacks, loves to paint similar views as the weather and time of day change.
The sometimes fierce natural colours of the evening sky are brought into close opposition with the piercing necklace of artificial lights of the city strung out below.
By returning to the same locations throughout the year, Butterfield becomes attuned to the gradually changing position of the sun on the horizon, the quality of light and the beauty of a specific place. Twilight, when the sun is just below the horizon, occurs both before sunrise and after sunset, and captures the full force of all the colours and the ‘fireworks of the sky’.
The exhibition contained 26 paintings displayed following the months of a year, to chart the rhythms, colours and poetry across the seasons.
About the Artist
Sarah Butterfield is an award-winning painter with a particular eye for capturing the expressive colour and quality of light in her works. Butterfield has exhibited her art at major London galleries, including The Royal College of Art, Agnew's, Cadogan Contemporary, Albemarle and Frost & Reed. Her work is enjoyed by international audiences, with exhibitions hosted in New York, Hong Kong and Shanghai to being found in public and private collections across Europe and America.
