Sarah Hemstock was born in the Nottinghamshire mining Town of Kirkby-in-Ashfield. Her early education centred on the sciences, gaining an honours degree and PhD in Biology from Kings College London. It was during this time that Sarah met sculptor Brian Wiltshire, a chance encounter which further encouraged her interest in wood carving and sculpture, an effortless progression from studying nature to working with natural materials. Sarah went on to study wood carving with John Farthing and completed an art foundation course at West Nottinghamshire College, Mansfield, where she met Nadim Chaudry.

A major influence in Sarah’s work has been her ongoing development work, with NGO’s in India, Peru, Fiji, Samoa, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Vanuatu and Sub-Saharan Africa. Her NGO work has always dealt with communities, promoting sustainable development and has involved projects as diverse as rehabilitating Inca agricultural systems, specifically terracing and irrigation to making diesel from coconut oil in the South Pacific. Sustainable development work intrinsically involves working with natural renewable resources such as wood and other biomass and forms a basis for her interest in natural sculptural materials and forms.