Sara Impey

Sara Impey is a textile artist specialising in the techniques of quilt making. A former journalist, she writes the free-machine stitched texts that feature in her work herself, using the textile surface to comment on contemporary social and political issues, sometimes with a dash of humour. Her background as a quilter informs her practice, which is based on quiltmaking techniques. Most of her pieces are wall-hangings, though some are three-dimensional.

She made her first quilt in 1971 while still at school. Sara studied modern languages at Oxford University before training as a newspaper reporter. She comes from a farming family in Essex and still lives near the farm where she grew up.

Her work is held in national and international collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Museum of Arts and Design in New York and the International Quilt Museum in Nebraska. She has been juried into the major United States exhibition Quilt National six times. Her book 'Text in Textile Art' was published by Batsford in 2013. She lectures on her practice and on the history of Coggeshall Tambour Lace.