EXHIBITION DATES : In person and online from 5/9 – 18/10
INTRODUCTION :
Anima Mundi are delighted to present Føroyar, the latest solo exhibition from environmental artist and mariner Sax Impey.
Impey’s practice is inseparable from direct encounter. Having sailed thousands of miles across some of the earth’s most challenging waters, his work is informed not by distant observation but by ongoing immersion in the elemental. The pieces gathered here emerge from a recent voyage to the remote Faroe Islands, while also drawing upon wider experiences of time spent at sea.
Impey’s practice is inseparable from direct encounter. Having sailed thousands of miles across some of the earth’s most challenging waters, his work is informed not by distant observation but by ongoing immersion in the elemental. The pieces gathered here emerge from a recent voyage to the remote Faroe Islands, while also drawing upon wider experiences of time spent at sea.
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Here, the transient ocean meets with the geological, where rock is shaped and worn across slow time. Cliffs and mountains rise like ancient sentinels — immovable and enduring, yet our perception of this permanence remains fleeting, obscured and revealed by weather, mist and shifting light. This continual dissolving and reforming creates a dialogue between the momentary and the eternal.
In the studio, Impey translates these encounters into material form. His mark-making experiments with fluidity, pressure and dissolution, carrying both the turbulence of weather and wave and the weight of rock and mass. Fluid washes veil incisive gestures; immediacy is held in balance with structural precision, in search of a language that might embody the elemental in its many states.
Føroyar becomes a meditation on duality — of intimacy and immensity, transience and endurance, fragility and strength. It is an invitation to enter into renewed dialogue with the natural world, to sense again a deep and humbling connectedness with it, and to recognise both the fleetingness of perception and the slower transformations of the earth that will outlast us.
Joseph Clarke, 2025
ONLINE CATALOGUE :
“Úr øllum ættum koma vindar,
og teir syngja um hav og land.”
”From every quarter the winds come,
and they sing of sea and land.”
FØROYAR :
Begin with the medium... a stick of charcoal, that most ancient of material... perhaps the oldest, alongside ochre, the drawing mud of our forebears…
There is shape, and form to be discovered, the forms which sit massive, yet are made elusive, and fragmentary through ethereal mists... rain clouds obscure, and give space to ancient voices.
There is shape, and form to be discovered, the forms which sit massive, yet are made elusive, and fragmentary through ethereal mists... rain clouds obscure, and give space to ancient voices.
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The strata, running horizontally throughout, perpendicular to runnels, cracks and crevices, borne of the ceaseless water... the skeleton of the land, conjuring in the mind the mere hint of a possibility of awareness, of the deep time of our planet home…
We see a pulse rate in geological deep time, the ossified heartbeat of the land... Land of mist and cloud… no city in the world sees less sun than the tiny capital Tórshavn, where the Vikings established their ting, and carved their optimistic sun dial on the flat rocks of Tinganes…
We have sailed to these islands onboard Excelsior, a gaff rigged Lowestoft fishing smack… when these sailing vessels were superseded by newer, diesel engined boats in the British fishing fleets, many found new homes further north, in Scandinavia and the Faroe Islands. At every mooring we make, we are visited by singular old men, who sit and stare silently at the vessel of their own working past, and the memory of their youth…
Sax Impey, 2025
EXHIBITION ARTWORKS (CLICK FOR FULL DETAILS) :
BIOGRAPHY :
Sax Impey is a British artist born in Penzance, Cornwall. He currently works from one of the prestigious Porthmeor Studios in St. Ives. From 2005, he has collaborated with the cross-cultural, environmental art group Red Earth in the creation of site-specific installations including a multi media performance at Trafalgar Square, London and Birling Gap in Sussex. In 2007 Impey’s work was selected for the ‘Art Now Cornwall’ exhibition at Tate St Ives where he was placed on the cover of the associated publication. The same year he was heralded in The Times as one of the ‘New Faces of Cornish Art’. In 2010 he was featured in Owen Sheers’s BBC4 Documentary ‘Art of the Sea (In Pictures)’ alongside Anish Kapoor, J. M. W. Turner, Martin Parr and Maggi Hambling among others. His work was selected as a finalist the 2013 Threadneedle Prize and the year before was elected an Academician at the Royal West of England Academy. Most recently Impey was included in ‘The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner : Big Read’ project alongside artists including Glenn Brown, Linder, Cornelia Parker, Marina Abramović, Yinka Shonibare, Charles Avery, Gavin Turk, Fiona Banner, Mark Dion, Derek Jarman, William Kentridge and John Akomfrah accompanied by readings from renowned voices including Jeremy Irons, Willem Dafoe, Hilary Mantel, Simon Armitage, Tilda Swinton, Iggy Pop, Marianne Faithfull, Alan Cumming, Rupert Everett and Alan Bennett. Impey’s paintings are in multiple collections including The Arts Council, Warwick University, the Connaught Hotel alongside other private collections worldwide.