Sophie Tebbs is an artist working with printmaking, memory and the experience of place. Her practice begins with observation and immersion, allowing encounters with landscapes and everyday surroundings to settle into memory before translating them into printed images.
During her October residency at House of Hulda, Tebbs found herself reconsidering this process. Away from her usual routines, she had the time and space to reflect on how she works, and why. She came to recognise that absorbing experiences, rather than immediately turning them into images, was fundamental to her practice.
"I work best by soaking up experiences, letting them fully settle and ferment in my memories, and then extracting what images are left to use as prints."
She established a daily rhythm of planning work in the mornings, walking before lunch and printmaking through the afternoons. The house itself became part of her observations. Each window framed a different landscape, with its own textures and colours, while the low autumn sun transformed the rooms with golden-pink light.
Tebbs was also drawn to the small collections of shells, rocks and driftwood left by previous visitors, and to the artworks made by earlier residents. Seeing their different responses to the same surroundings was particularly meaningful as she developed her own. Before leaving, she added a small yellow shell found on the beach to the house's growing collection.
Her days on Andøya were marked by moments of solitude and unexpected encounters with the natural world. She heard four golden eagles calling above the mountains, watched the Northern Lights, climbed nearby peaks and swam in the Arctic Ocean.
Describing the residency as "a stretch of discovery (and sometimes loneliness), punctured by completely heart-opening experiences," Tebbs found that the experience offered more than material for new prints. It gave her a clearer understanding of the relationship between living, remembering and making that sits at the centre of her work.
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sophietebbs.com
