Towner Eastbourne will present an ambitious solo exhibition that explores the beauty and fragility of our planet

Melting Ice / Rising Tides is Stibbon’s first large-scale show at a major UK institution and will look at the warming environment of the polar regions and the impact this is ultimately having on the changing UK coastline, focusing on the Sussex shoreline local to Towner. For a number of years she has been observing and recording the precariousness of the polar ice sheets and glaciers and the profound effect that ice melt is having on global sea level rise. Melting Ice / Rising Tides will be a culmination of this work, making important connections between the apparent remote extremes of our planet and our local environment.

The exhibition will feature as its centrepiece Cliff Fall, 2023, a monumental and ambitious wall drawing and installation representing the rock falls that are an increasingly common occurrence on the UK coastline. Alongside it will be shown a selection of Stibbon’s large-scale drawings and prints depicting vast ice fields and towering bergs, made in response to recent field trips to Svalbard in the High Arctic, and the Weddell Sea, Antarctica. The exhibition’s narrative around coastal movement, change and erosion, will be completed with a range of new drawings of the sea and coastline of Sussex. Backed by an 8-meter-wide wall drawing of a Sussex cliff face, the white, chalk rocks cascade into the gallery space. A large-scale drawing Breaker, 2023, facing the installation, hems the viewer between crashing waves and the looming, precarious cliff.

Stibbon’s work is provoked by the wonder and drama of nature but underpinned by contemporary anxieties about our precarious future. Her work is grounded in research gathered ‘in the field’; recording observations through drawing, photography and film, which is then developed into larger scale works in her studio. The physical materials of site such as chalk, carbon and sea water, are often brought into her drawings or used as her drawing media, evoking the elusiveness of the subject in the material fabric of her work.

The show will create an immersive experience for the viewer, aiming to act as a stark reminder that the seemingly remote events of polar ice sheet melt is directly connected with the changes that we are witnessing in our local, more familiar UK landscape.

“As an artist I am a witness to what is happening in my lifetime - the challenge is how to render this uncertain future to audiences. Whilst scientific data clearly demonstrates dramatic increases in global warming is leading to Polar ice melt and rising sea levels, there is this growing gap between our understanding and our willingness to change our behaviour. I believe and hope that creative methods of communication can engage our emotions and help galvanize us into action,,” said Emma Stibbon.“We are delighted to open our 2024 summer season with a new show by Emma Stibbon, revealing her newest works for the first time to the public. Emma’s work is a perfect fit for our galleries, talking to our unique place between the South Downs and the coast, and our wider interest in exhibiting work that sheds new light on the natural world, landscape or climate change,” said Sara Cooper, Head of Exhibitions and Collections, Towner Eastbourne.