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I Understand

Sumi Perera RE

International award-winning printmaker Sumi Perera RE subtly fuses the expertise of traditional printmaking techniques with contemporary production processes. She creates beautifully constructed images and assemblages with architectural precision, incorporating processes such as stitching, laser cutting, folding, sandblasting and engraving as additional modes of drawing to open up new ideas beyond the perceived boundaries of print.

Perera's career background working as a doctor and a scientist feeds into her artistic practice and is reminiscent of the Renaissance's idiosyncratic integration of the Arts and Sciences; the resulting work is a studious examination of the visual world, eminating an experimental, research-like quality with an exacting eye for detail. 

Perera’s work is a visual exploration of constructed space, which sometimes conjurers a sense of urban or geographical mapping. Having spent time growing up in both Sri Lanka and the UK, much of her work is influenced by the idea of blurring the restrictiveness of boundaries. Clean, symmetrically considered interlocking edges gives her work a delicate sense of temporality. This air of ephemerality is important for Perera as she notes that, for her, the allure of printmaking lies within the stream of possibilities and variables presented by a set of processes. She will quite often rework old printing plates and use discarded materials to build new work, questioning the label of a ‘finished’ piece of work set within the flux of the ever developing contemporary world.

Perera has won countless prizes for her work and exhibits worldwide. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers and a member of the Society of Designers Craftsman. Her international award-winning work is held in prominent public collections including Tate Britain, V&A Museum, Ashmolean Museum, Yale Centre for British Art, USA and has recently been short listed to be included in the Smithsonian Museum collection, USA.

Articles and Reviews

PAGES 2019 - Sumi Perera by Prof Chris Taylor

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Bankside Newsletter Autumn 2017 Sumi Perera

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Bath Chronicle Feb 2017

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Printmakers Council 50th Anniversary 2015 - Sumi Perera

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Printmakers Council 2015 - Sumi Perera

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Art in Print Vol 5, 2015 - Sumi Perera

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Printmaking Today Summer 2014 - Sumi Perera

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