My work explores the emotional and sensory dimensions of architecture, the quiet, often unseen ways that built environments carry atmosphere, memory and lived experience. I am drawn to what cannot be held but is deeply felt: shadow, absence and the trace of time. Through light, material and surface, I seek to make these fleeting sensations visible and tactile, to hold something of the ephemeral before it disappears.
Shadows are central to my practice, acting as metaphors for memory and psychological space, present yet unreachable. Drawn to the silhouettes cast by Brutalist and post-war Modernist architecture, I use them to give form to the immaterial, capturing the fragile tension between presence and loss. My process involves close physical engagement, walking, observing and recording shadow forms in bright, sunlit environments. These observations form the basis for my prints, collages and sculptures built through layering and repetition. I work with materials that respond to light; Perspex and dichroic films transmit shifting colour, while wood and card lend structure and tactility, creating a dialogue between solidity and impermanence.
This inquiry is rooted in a formative memory. Growing up in the tropical north of Western Australia, I would take shelter from the heat in the undercroft of my school, a cool concrete refuge. That early experience of finding comfort in a brutal structure continues to shape how I perceive space, through its atmosphere, its shadows and its emotional weight.
About
With a degree in Graphic Design and a PGCE, both from Middlesex University, Sarah has taught Art and Design in London and Oxfordshire schools since 1993.
In 2019 she took a break from teaching and running a busy art department to return to study at Oxford Brookes University, graduating in 2020 with Distinction, MFA in Fine Art. Since then Sarah has exhibited in over 30 exhibitions in the UK, USA, Iceland, Germany and Austria including ING Discerning Eye, RWA Open and Wales Contemporary. She is an alumni of New Platform Art and is the recipient of an a-n Artists Information Company bursary award for 2025.
Sarah is a member of several artist groups and communities, including ArtCan, Oxford Art Society and Portable Collective. She is also an associate member of Oxford Printmakers Co-operative.
‘Curiosity keeps me in a constant state of learning, which drives my desire to experiment and expand the boundaries of my artwork’.
EDUCATION
2020 – Oxford Brookes University, MFA Fine Art (Distinction)
2018 – Oxford Brookes University, PGCert(Ed) Artist Teacher Scheme (Distinction)
1993 – Middlesex University, PGCE (Secondary) Art and Design
1991 – Middlesex Polytechnic, BA Hons Graphic Design (2:1)
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2020 – Impalpable Shadows. MFA Degree Show (Online and imagined at The Foundry Gallery, London)
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025 - Mail Art project. A collaboration between H_A_R_D_P_A_I_N_T_I_N_G, Sluice and LungA School, Icelandic Embassy, London, 6 November to 15th December
2025 - Oxford Art Society Open, Kendrew Barn Gallery, St John’s College, Oxford, 20 September to 4 October
2025 - Mail Art project. A collaboration between H_A_R_D_P_A_I_N_T_I_N_G, Sluice and LungA School, Seyðisfjörður, Iceland, 22 - 25 May
2025 - OAS Members Exhibition. Kendrew Barn Gallery, St John’s College, Oxford, 22nd to 5th April
2024/25 - RWA 171 Annual Open Exhibition, Bristol, 14 September to 5 January
2024 - Oxford Art Society Open Exhibition, The Kendrew Barn Gallery, St John’s College, Oxford, 21 September to 5 Oct
2024 - The Shape of Things To Come, Gallery 475, Fulham Road, London, 21 to 25 May
2024 - Connected III, The Old Fire Station Gallery, Henley-On-Thames, 11 to 15 April
2024 - A Room Of One’s Own, Irving Gallery, Oxford, 2nd March to 5th April
2023 - ING Discerning Eye, The Mall Galleries, 17 to 26 November 2023, and online until the 31 December (Selected by Julian Wild)
2023 - Cymru Gyfoes/Wales Contemporary, Waterfront Gallery, Milford Haven, 21st October to 20th December
2023 - The Creative Network Launch, Saw Swee Hock Student Centre, LSE, London, 6 October
2023 - BOX Bonn/Oxford ARTxCHANGE, Artroom, Windmühlenstraße 9, 52111 Bonn, 3 - 17 September
2023 - INC Print Exchange, Reveal Printmakers, Salford and Magdalen Artists, Oxford, Hot Bed Press Studios, Salford, 31 August - 30 September
2023 - The Power of Pencil. ArtCan Virtual Gallery, 20 March to 22 April
2023 - Oxford Art Society Members’ Exhibition. Kendrew Barn Gallery, St John’s College, Oxford, 18 March to 2 April
2022 - RESTORE. Portable Collective, Cornerstone, Didcot, Nov to 3 Jan 2023
2022 - STORIES 02. KROLL, The News Building, London, July to Feb 2023
2022 - ELEVATE 04. KROLL, The Shard, London, July to Feb 2023
2022 - EXPLORE 01. KROLL Building, New York, April to Feb 2023
2022 - Vienna Calling III, Take a Chance on Me. Galerie ArtPool/Vienna, 9 to 23 September
2022 - FLUX noun [CHANGE]. The Jam Factory, 28th Feb to 24 April
2022 - Raising The Bar. Women in Art CIC online Auction, The Auction Collective, 15 Feb to 18 March
2022 - WINTER. Kingsland Project Space, London, 21st January to 12 February
2022 - FRACTURE! The Old Fire Station, Oxford 19th January to 26th February (PORTABLE Collective, Oxford, inaugural exhibition)
2021 - Twenty, Twenty One. Oxford Brookes MFA Graduate Show, OVADA Gallery, Oxford
2021 – Oxford Art Society Open Exhibition. The Cloister Gallery, Oxford
2021 – Twenty, Twenty One. Oxford Brookes MFA Graduate Show, Oxford Brookes University
2020 – Oxford Art Society Open Exhibition. (Online)
2019/20 – DreaMFActory. An interim exhibition of work by students from the MFA programme, Glass Tank Gallery, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford
2019 – Traces. Nuffield Orthopaedic Hospital, Oxford
2019 – Chromantics. Cornerstone Arts Centre, Didcot
2019 – Transience. Artist Teacher Group, Richard Hamilton Building, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford
AWARDS
2025 - a-n The Artists’ Information Company Bursary for continued professional practice and creative development
2022/23 - Selected for New Platform Art Professional Development Programme
TALKS
2023 - Art-Sauce, Oxford, The Answers You Get Depend Upon The Questions You Ask. 18 April
2021 - EPOX Primer 03 Live with Jeremy Morgan, 21 July
RESIDENCIES
2021 - Shadow Traces. A month long, self-initiated online residency creating site specific responses to the Denys Wilkinson Building, Oxford
COLLECTIONS
My work is held in collections in The UK, The Netherlands, Austria and Australia.