The day I phoned Sara

Zhané Warren (born in 1976 in Johannesburg) studied Fine Art at Stellenbosch University and, in 2006, achieved a master’s degree in Technology of Fine Art from the University of Johannesburg. She was awarded a scholarship and attended the Karel de Grote University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Antwerp, Belgium. Warren remained in Belgium for five years, working alongside renowned artists and printmakers. 2007, she returned to South Africa as a recognised master printer and founded Warren Editions.

As a visual and performance artist, Warren has staged numerous performances and exhibitions in Belgium, Scotland, and South Africa. Her solo exhibitions include Live with Me (KZN Gallery, Durban, 2007), Recurrence (Art on Paper, Johannesburg, 2006), and In Between Here and There (with Robert van Dromme at Contemporary Wei, Antwerp, Belgium). Her work is represented in various South Africa, Belgium, and the USA collections. In 2019, she visited the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, USA, for an Artist’s Residency.

Warren is the master printer and founder of Warren Editions, a Cape Town-based printmaking studio. She is a respected printer, fine art publishing authority, and passionate educator. Her expertise has significantly impacted South African printmaking. As she has trained many printers, some have become skilled printers – running their studios or working in professional printmaking studios. She has introduced technical improvements that studios, printers, and printmaking departments in South Africa have adopted. She continues to inspire the next generation of printmakers.

Apart from collaborating with artists to make prints, she creates her prints in etching, monotype and photogravure.

She lives near Kommetjie with her life partner and two daughters.

For her print she employed spitbite, an aquatint technique, involves etching gestural tonal gradations similar to ink washes and loose watercolour marks by painting directly onto a rosin-covered plate with ferric chloride, an etching mordant. To prevent the ferric chloride from pulling away from the surface of the copperplate, spit or gum arabic is added to it.