Sharon was born in the market town of Skipton known as the Gateway to the Yorkshire Dales, spent her teenage years growing up in Lancashire, but has lived in the coastal town of Southport for the past 30 years.

The sources that have inspired Sharon’s artworks originate from observations, captured moments, recollections of time and place, fragments of memory and traces of what is left behind.

Artworks have been developed around the idea of the construction and re-construction of narratives remembered and sometimes invented; whispers of a forgotten history; a history inspired by collections of photographs of family, friends and strangers; a history of time and place. These pieces combine surface qualities with images and objects that evoke personal reflections, remembrance of times past, recollections of
people and places, and often memories which were once significant but have over time become lost or forgotten.

Other artworks are intended as a celebration of the natural changes and inherent qualities of landscape.

‘I frequently walk along the Sefton coastline and regularly visit Cumbria and other rural environments. These environments inspire and provide a source of ideas. Each environment presents unique characteristics, with tides that rise and fall leaving their mark on marshes and sand hills, and rural landscapes that are rich in texture and colour, or brisk and raw in appearance. The journeys I make are recorded through photography, and the selection and collection of natural detritus that reflects the qualities of the landscape. These fragments
are kept in remembrance of time and place. I aim to draw attention to the finer details of the landscape and present them as relics that have survived the passage of time. Objects are layered to reflect the manner in which the landscape reveals and conceals itself and are assembled to highlight the precious nature of each selected subject within a composition of related fragments."

The working process for these artworks incorporates the arrangement of collage, painting and image transfers from photographs and inkjet prints. These mixed media artworks explore surface, colour and the juxtaposition of image, text and found objects.

Digital prints are developed through the manipulation of selected images from the mixed media pieces.

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