The National Trust

I was asked by The National Trust to create a collection of illustrations and an animation to be be shown for an exhibition called Between the Covers: The Life and Literature of Vita Sackville West, at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent, England.

The exhibition, alongside my work, shows artefacts, rare editions of Vita’s novels, and objects from her life to give a sense of the world of this bohemian aristocrat who lived in an ancient Kentish castle and wrote extraordinary novels, poems and articles, whilst maintaining a marriage and multiple extramarital same-sex relationships. Vita also created iconic gardens that are now world famous.

Firstly I created portraits of Vita and her most famous lover and muse, Virginia Woolf. These two illustrations hang together in the Oast House exhibiton space at Sissinghurst.

Portraits of Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West

Animation

I made a five minute stop frame animation for this exhibition.

Book Illustrations

I illustrated five covers for a selection of Vita’s best-known novels. These help to bring new attention to the works, and are displayed on the walls of the Oast House alongside supporting materials from Vita’s life and letters.

The Heir

The Devil at Westease

The Land

Heritage

No Signs in the Sea

Making the work for this exhibition was a great joy for me. It combined an opportunity to create new an animation in my stop-frame style, to make portraits, and to work on narrative pieces, all at once. It was a good opportunity to learn more about Vita, her work and the circles she moved in. As I move through life as an illustrator and mother, the intensity of the shared roles in these early years can feel totally overwhelming at times, headspace is a luxury; domestic noise dominates. But here I got a chance to redefine the visual rules I use for my work, and in finding a way to illustrate in a way that felt sympathetic to the Bloomsbury aesthetic, at the same time keeping my love of bold colour and markmaking - found a good fit, after many late nights.

Thank you to the National Trust for this commission.