Sang d’Encre, aka Sasha Cyr, is a self-taught printmaking artist based in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada where she creates from her home studio. With no professional training in art or in printmaking, Sasha learned about linocut and printmaking around 2016 after discovering artists showing their work on social media. This discovery gave her the desire to get back to creative pursuits, something that she had put aside at the beginning of her twenties to focus on her degree. “I then felt a great need to reconnect with the artist in me,” says the printmaker.
The pandemic allowed Sasha to take time for herself and to practice more printmaking. She started by making her work visible on Instagram in 2020, and soon after decided to try selling her artworks.
Producing work under the pseudonym Sang d’Encre (which in French means to be worried sick and can be literally translated to turn your blood into ink), the saying suits Sasha well. She tells us; “I’m a nervous person who worries a lot, and printmaking allows me to carve all my worries away! It’s also a nod to the use of ink as the main medium of printmaking”.
Her inspiration comes from the natural environment; from flowers, to foliage, and animals, and particularly those of the Maritimes province. Being a fervent feminist, Sasha loves illustrating women and femininity. Her work is also strongly inspired by pop culture, the aesthetics of the 60s and 70s, and anything that “strikes me as kitsch and tacky”. “It is figurative, and I believe, present a certain softness and youthfulness,” comments the printmaker.
With many ideas often on her mind, in fear of forgetting them Sasha always has plenty of sketches ready to be carved and printed. Once she has decided on a subject to work on, she finalises the sketch on her tablet then transfers it to a soft rubber block, or sometimes linoleum. It is then time to carve the design, her favourite part! Once carved, Sasha inks the block with oil-based ink, and presses the image with a barren and the back of a carving tool. She also has a small wooden press for when the weight of the paper is too great to be hand-printed. “Printing can be quite a workout,” describes Sasha.
“I just love the craft of printmaking. I find it difficult to put into words why and what it gives me. I certainly like that it’s accessible and that you don’t necessarily have to be good at drawing to do it. I like that it is a tactile and rather physical artistic practice. It is also very diverse because of the multiple steps implies. Then the icing on the cake is really to see the evolution and the transformation from an initial idea to the final print, which is often very different from the first sketch.”
www.sangdencrestudio.square.site
@s.a.n.g.d.e.n.c.r.e
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