In her work Ibby uses a combination of writing and drawing as intimate means of understanding the land and life around her. Through an intensity of observation, the transcribing of other lives into the pictorial and the written become visceral acts of recognition and remembrance. Often focussing on themes of species loss and interdependence, in her work natural foraged materials are used to make tools, pigments and cloth. Borrowing Donna Haraway’s concept of ‘sympoiesis’, or a ‘making with’ the work becomes collaborative and relational. It seeks to return agency to the more-than-human and convey an equality of lived experience between species, always looking to a future of kinship. Advocating throughout her practice for sustainable and regenerative futures, for Ibby making and writing become acts of care, and a form of quiet resistance within the violent unmaking of life in the Anthropocene.

Following a degree in Art History and English at York University, UK, Ibby originally trained as an easel paintings’ conservator at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London. Since graduating in 2004 she has worked as both an artist and a researcher into paintings and collections. She is particularly interested in the history of making, and in the human relationship with materials and the natural world in the creation of art and telling of stories. Recently awarded an MA with distinction in Arts and Ecology, from Dartington Arts School, University of Plymouth, she is an elected full member of the UK’s Society of Graphic Fine Art, and serves on the council. Ibby has exhibited throughout the UK, and in 2021 was awarded a Natural Eye Bursary from the Society of Wildlife Artists. In 2023 she won the Society of Graphic Fine Art’s open exhibition in London with her work ‘Hindsight’ and has recently completed a 6 week residency with the Antony Gormley foundation. Her first piece of ecological written work was published by Wild Roof Journal in January 2024.