Bio
Sara is a working artist, musician, and designer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Inspired by the pursuit of emotional and spiritual intelligence, she utilizes her work as an explorative tool into the inner and outer landscapes of the human experience. She has found that this practice allows her to not only understand herself better, but to access deeper compassion, empathy, and the ability to engage with others from a place of greater integrity. This endeavor is ongoing, by nature.
Sara studied Photography at CSU Long Beach before receiving her BFA with a Dual Emphasis in Painting & Drawing and Photography from San Francisco State University in 2013. She attended the Artist in Residence program at Elsewhere Studios in Paonia, Colorado in the fall of 2014, and recently completed a certificate program in Advanced Realism in Portrait Drawing through the Dzimirsky Realism Art Master Atelier (D.R.A.M.A.) in Warmsen, Germany at the beginning of this year.
As the recipient of the year-long EACH Foundation Studio Residency, Sara is currently working out of Studio 20 1/2 at Art Works Downtown in San Rafael, CA. While there, she will be completing her body of work Intimacy; a year-long exploration into the blocks around, pathways to, and practice of intimacy within one’s personal, familial, and communal life. Coming together as a collection of hyperreal graphite drawings, the images created will be both figurative and symbolic, depending on the element of intimacy being highlighted. If you are interested in participating in this experiment, please reach out to her to connect! She is open and looks forward to hearing from you.
Artist Statement: Intimacy
Intimacy [ ‘in(t)əməsē ]
noun (plural intimacies)
close familiarity or friendship; closeness:
the intimacy between one and one’s self; partner; family; community.
In October 2017, I began deep interpersonal work through therapy, reading, and journaling. There were many moments of extraordinary challenge, and others of celebratory breakthroughs. Self-exploration, trust, and commitment to this work is what carried me through the times of self-doubt and emotional exhaustion. It was, and is, emotional labor. After a year and a half of deep commitment to this path, I have been able to see the effects it has had on my life and all of the relationships within it. I continue to access greater depths of intimacy in, what feels to me, a much truer way. This work is ongoing. I seek to understand more – about myself, my partner, my family, my local community, and the global community – about how we all engage in deeper levels of intimacy as individuals, and as a culture as a whole.
The body of work I’m creating is meant to do two things: First, to provoke engagement between persons already close, or not close at all, by engaging in vulnerable dialogue as an experiment in accessing intimacy; and second, to render the ideas, feelings, and experiences discussed through, what is to me, the deeply intimate technique of graphite hyperrealism.
You are invited to engage! I would love to hear how intimacy has felt to you; the challenges, breakthroughs, uncertainties, or anything you feel compelled to speak about – I’m an open ear, ready and willing to explore this vulnerable subject together. As a collection of drawings, the images created will be both figurative and symbolic, depending on the element of intimacy being highlighted. Not all stories that are shared will be rendered specifically, but will inspire the artwork as a culmination of the year-long experiment as it unfolds.
Please reach out anytime to connect, share, or to schedule a studio visit.