Sandra Masterson Curriculum Vitae

Sandra Masterson grew up in the picturesque flint stone village of Stanmer, Sussex where her farther was game-keeper. After her initial interests in horticulture and botany, she followed an artistic career, completing her foundation studies at Colchester Art College before gaining a first degree in Fine Art Painting from Wolverhampton, followed by a MA from Birmingham School of Art.

Meeting the sculptor David Nash at Wolverhampton helped Sandra find the direction her work would take. For more than 20 years, her focus has been directed at the language and poetry of soil. The act of walking, collecting and being part of the living landscape are central to the creative process. Masterson's Earth Mapping and communing works take on a variety of forms and scale, and includes independent and commissioned projects. The Two Rivers Dore project, used the collected soils and sediments from the two rivers to create a large scale installation of paintings, maps, booklets, prints and photographs based on two rivers of the same name in Herefordshire, England and in the Puy de Dome, France. European Geopark Residencies include the Abberley and Malvern Hills, the peat bogs of Forest Fawr, Brecon Mid Wales, the Psiloritis and Gergeri Crete Residency and Art Festival, and the UNESCO Earth Heritage exhibition, Heraklion, Crete.

Her work has been exhibited in a number Public and Private Galleries and held in both public and private collections and publications. In 2013 she opened up a large studio in the heart of rural France from where she continues to explore and learn.

"Masterson's technique of using the soil as both the ground and the subject of her work opens up a space in which the geological and historical past and the present are fused through a visual interpretation of the concept of 'working the soil' " - Janet Harrison, A Walk in the Park.