About the Studio

I’m Sean Blake, an artist living and working in the East Neuk of Fife.

Living here changed the way I looked at maps.

The harbours, narrow streets and stretches of coastline aren’t simply geography. They are places people attach their lives to. Places we return to, remember, and carry with us long after we’ve left.

I became interested in whether a map could hold some of that feeling. Not simply showing a place, but physically containing part of it.

That idea became the foundation of Terra Aurea.

My work combines cartography, coastal topography and traditional materials to create original textured artworks inspired by places with a strong connection to the sea.

Central to each piece is something quite literal: the landscape itself.

I personally collect sand from the shoreline or harbour represented in the artwork and embed it into the foundation of the canvas. The geography of the place therefore becomes part of the physical structure of the work, not just something depicted on its surface.

From there, I build the landscape by hand using texture, relief and metallic leaf. Roads, harbours and coastlines are reduced to their essential forms, allowing familiar places to become something quieter and more abstract.

Light becomes part of the work too. As daylight changes across a room, the metallic surfaces and textured elevations respond differently, revealing details that can disappear and reappear throughout the day.

For me, maps have never been only about finding where we are.

They can remind us where we came from, where we have been, and the places that somehow became part of us.

That is what I want these pieces to hold.

A place, made physical.

Sean Blake