Sumi Perera

Liminal Spaces 2

22-28th APRIL 2017
Opening on 24th April 5pm

Sumi Perera is an interdisciplinary artist who links her status as a bimodal émigré born in Sri Lanka, and now living in the UK, to her background working as a doctor, scientist and artist.

She is a senior fellow of the Royal Society of Painters-Printmakers, UK and is the first recipient of the Guest Artist Full Fellowship & solo show awarded by Scuola Internazionale di Grafica.

Using traditional methods of printmaking (mezzotints, etching, engraving, screenprinting, drypoint etc), she combines them with contemporary techniques such as Computer Numerical Controlled (CNC: Laser cutting & engraving, sandblasting) to create artist books and print installations.

She is a fellow of the Society of Designer Craftsmen, a member of the 62 Group of International Textile Artists & a member of the Society Of Graphic Fine Arts & Prism Print International and often harnesses these skills: stitch, drawing, metal and glass work, sound installations using electro-conductive inks to emit sound upon touch.

Perera has won several international awards and prizes: The Prix de Print, Art in Print, USA; 1st Prize & Gold medal at the Seoul Bookarts Competition, the 1st Prize at SHELTER, Boston USA; The Flourish Award-Printmaker of the year for excellence in Printmaking & Solo Show etc.
She has work held in many public collections: Tate Britain (8 works), Victoria & Albert Museum (10 works), Yale Centre for British Art (2 works); British Library, UK; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; Guanlan Museum, China; Sakima

Art Museum, Japan; Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Egypt; Iraq National Library, Bagdad; National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, ROC; ULUS Print Triennial Collection in Serbia; & several artist book collections in the universities & libraries in the UK, USA & Australia.

She has been awarded many residencies: a Teaching Residency at the Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing (2007); The National Open Art Competition, Artist in Residence UK (2016); A Stone Lithography Residency at Pierre Presse, France (2017) etc.

Often her work is an exploration of how the body navigates and occupies the built environment, and for this exhibition at SIDG the work is based on reading John Ruskin’s The Seven Lamps of Architecture and The Stones of Venice and a visit to the Architecture Biennale in Venice 2016.
She is a lecturer at Middlesex University, London on the MA Printmaking program and often runs workshops and masterclasses on hybrid printmaking techniques.

Website:
https://www.saatchiart.com/sumiperera
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