Currently based in North Devon after many years spent living in France and more recently in her home county of Sussex, Sarah is a self-employed artist working on commissions and for exhibitions. She is both a portrait artist and a portrayer of scenes and subjects originating from within the man-made landscape. She works primarily in oils, ink pens and print media, but enjoys many other processes, including bookbinding.
Sarah tutors beginner adults at home in subjects such as traditional drawing tips and techniques, understanding and using colour, and introductory printing techniques. She has recently started running small workshops within North Devon library spaces where she also works part-time as a Libraries Unlimited Customer Service Assistant.
What Sarah says about her journey and practice:
“Having grown up in an environment where academic ability was prized over artistic ambition, my entire education until the age of 30 remained academic. I then spent the next 20 years trying to fulfil a creative need through intermittent or casual art evening classes and correspondence courses. Finally able to attend an Art & Design Foundation Diploma in Sussex, graduating in 2014, I subsequently trained in portraiture, printing and drawing (amongst other things) at the Art Academy in London.
“I love sketching just for myself and find I am frequently drawn to a particular scene by an intensely satisfying combination of geometrical lines and shapes; magical colours, or by a certain element of incongruity or disconnect (the latter tying in to recurring themes in my work of isolation of the individual in contemporary society, breakdown of social interaction and loss).
“As a result, my portraiture practice often falls within the wider context of recording chance moments observed in the lives of figures as they move through modern urban society. Whether such moments are comic, poignant, paradoxical, mundane or actually tragic, I perceive them as “dramas” of the everyday and the aim of such artwork is quite simply to find ways to direct the viewer’s gaze to them.
“Learning new creative processes and practising traditional artistic skills has always brought me joy, peace and fulfilment. It gives me great pleasure to be able to pass on and share my knowledge with others who have not had that opportunity, in the hope it might also bring them the same satisfaction.”
