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Sharon Bruster
Sharon Bruster’s paintings capture the joy of observation, the colourful stillness and beauty of rockpools.
Sharon lives and works in St Mawgan on the North coast and is her sole inspiration, most specifically the water’s edge and the spaces between high and low tide. Walking, photographing, gathering, writing haiku, sketching, collage, and painting are all part of Sharon’s daily practice. In creating a series of paintings, exploration is key – with each series of work she investigates new ways to express her fascination with this landscape.
Rich surfaces, colourful coastal palettes and expressive mark-making draw the viewer closer and evoke memories of favourite coastal places. Shapes, colours and textures observed at the meeting of land and sea are constant motifs in her work.
Painting Water
Sharon started the paintings laid out as one large ‘jigsaw’ on a painting table – this meant she could get some big marks laid down by working right across the full combined surface. Then, she added layers of acrylic inks, sprayed them with water to move and combine with the pigment on the surface, then the paintings were wiped with cloths to reveal the texture and reveal a variety of marks and tones.
As the surfaces built up, I gradually reached a point where I could separate the pieces and start to work on them as individuals – editing with more ink and then areas of flatter acrylic paint to contrast with the fluid, inky, watery marks. This contrast of the ‘solid’ and ‘fluid’ interests me about rockpools – the different textures, shapes and colours visible in these contrasts.
Our Favourite Pieces
Each piece is beautifully handmade and unique, we have selected a few of our favourites to show you.
Rockpool Paintings
A body of work based on my fascination with coastal pools, rockpools and saltwater gathering and leaving traces at the meeting of land and sea. Each series has its own character – the same sources of inspiration, but made using different media and processes. Each series is an exploration. Each develops the story, like different chapters of the same book.
Tiddle Pool Paintings
This series explores surface – the surface of water and the way that light catches on ripples or makes shapes, giving the surface an almost solid quality at times. Exploring the use of new surfaces such as plaster of paris, slate and marble dust and hand finishing with soft wax enable me to emulate the silken quality of the water surface.
