Sally Mumford is an Australian artist, predominately working in print making and drawing. She presently resides in Alice Springs. Her art practice investigates ways of making sense of the world through the relational aspects of the natural environment, the body and the mind. Much of this way of thinking has been shaped by two long-standing, on-going relationships, one with Central Australia, the other with the practice of yoga.
Mumford majored in Drawing and Printmedia, graduating with Honours at the School of Art and Design, Australian National University in 2018. She has had solo exhibitions in Canberra and Alice Springs and has been part of many group exhibitions throughout Australia. Her work was selected for the exhibition; Art. Letter. Home, that toured China from 2017-2019.
The natural environment has always been a significant part of Mumford’s life and many years living in Alice Springs, then Tasmania, has given her an appreciation of the role that the natural environment plays in our emotional and spiritual well-being. This affinity and concern for country is expressed in her art making through actively engaging with elements within the landscape as well as quietly observing. Her art work is inspired by the daily domestic rhythms of nature. In their continual wonder and delight, moments are felt physically as a deep connection to that particular place and time.
Quiet observation, an essential aspect of the practice of yoga, brings a contemplative quality as well as a physical and mental presence to the act of making art. With this emphasis, the process becomes more important than the outcome. Mumford’s honours project explored the breath as an individual and collective shared experience. Using her understanding of the breath through her yoga practice and incorporating this into her art making, the work aimed to bring the viewer into this shared felt experience and to become conscious of their own breathing processes.
Mumford also explores how the external world meets the internal by way of object, story and myth, where reality and abstraction blur. Her fine graphite drawing style is conducive to creating narrative while through print making, with its repetitive, mediative and explorative processes, accidental and unsuspecting possibilities open up.
