Print description

A panoramic view of Birling Gap at eventide, with the Seven Sisters, Cuckmere Valley and Seaford Coastguard Cottages stretching across the Sussex coast.
Above the cliffs, a murmuration of starlings sweeps through the soft evening sky, echoing the rhythms and patterns of the landscape below.

Print details

Panoramic format. Print size 124 x 30.5 cm approx. Signed print from a limited edition of 100. From original ink drawing to which I apply colour digitally. Printed on fine art paper using archival inks.

Birling Gap

The beach at Birling Gap sits at the foot of the imposing, sheer chalk cliffs of the Seven Sisters, between the seaside towns of Eastbourne and Brighton. Birling Gap and the Seven Sisters is a National Trust site with a fascinating history dating back to around 4000 BC, when Neolithic people lived in a settlement at nearby Belle Tout.

Birling Gap is a coastal hamlet within the parish of East Dean and Friston. It is situated on the Seven Sisters, not far from Beachy Head, and is owned by the National Trust.

Coastal erosion has already claimed some of the row of coastguard cottages built in 1878. In 1973, the first cottage was demolished because it was too close to the eroding cliff edge. Nonetheless, the cottages that remain are still inhabited.

Seaford Coastguard Cottages

At the end of the Seven Sisters is the Cuckmere Valley. On the opposite bank of the Cuckmere River, you can see the Seaford Coastguard Cottages in my print.

Interestingly, I only discovered this while drawing the base image for the print. From the geography and location, I knew the cottages were somewhere along the shore. I work from my own photographs, and it is only later, back in the studio, when I enlarge the photographs and study the details of the landscape, that things like this reveal themselves.

Beyond the cottages, the view ends at Seaford Head Nature Reserve.

Across the print, you can also see a flock of starlings forming a murmuration, creating its distinctive patterns in the sky. I use the print to record and emphasise other patterns found in nature.

At a larger scale, you can appreciate the repetitive, undulating formation of the chalk cliffs. At a smaller scale, the rocks scattered along the shore create another pattern, repeating themselves in a kind of natural scribble.

Print connections Cuckmere Haven Valley

As a curious note, the Seaford Coastguard cottages appear in the distance in a similar way in my print  ‘Cuckmere Haven Valley Eventide’

Print collection Eventide

This print belongs to my tonal collection ‘Eventide’. The collection was inspired by a late-evening sea swim by the West Pier in Brighton. That evening, the sea was still like a mirror, while soft pink hues surrounded the scene like candy floss.

The word eventide is an old-fashioned English word for evening.