Sarah Ammons
Beautiful brushwork, color, patterns, portraits, graphic line quality, botany, we love every aspect of Sarah Ammons' work!
Sarah was born and raised east of Toronto, Canada, on a beach on Lake Ontario. Sarah became interested in art at a young age, spending every available minute drawing, and developing her techniques. After high school, she spent a year in an interdisciplinary liberal arts program in Halifax, Nova Scotia, at the University of King's College, studying Western literature and philosophy. During this time, she kept an avid practice of her journaling and sketching, weaving together a visual language which combined her reflections on philosophy, life and existence. Following this introspective year, she earned a BFA at Queen's University in Kingston Ontario, graduating in 2012. She began to sell and exhibit her paintings in Toronto, learning about the business side of being an artist. Sarah completed her MFA in painting at the San Francisco Art Institute in 2014, and was awarded a year long fellowship residency at the Headlands Centre for the Arts. Sarah now works out of her studio in Healdsburg, California, and exhibits her work across the San Francisco Bay Area, and in New York and Toronto.
Sarah's paintings use pattern, figure and objects to create a sense of narrative that asks the viewer to fill in the gaps. Influenced by textile art, Lacanian psychoanalysis, Viennese expressionism, and mid-century illustration, she creates scenes that ask the viewer to assess the social situation before them, as if walking into a party not knowing any of the guests. Sarah often works with self-portraits, portraying multiple selves interacting in one interior scene, as well as scenes depicting an interaction between two people in a relationship. This starts a conversation between the subject matter and the viewer about the relationship one has with oneself and with others. As the viewer reads the painting they cannot help but look within themselves to give the painting meaning-reading into body language, objects, and other signifiers within the scene.
She can be found on the internet here and on Instagram
Originally published 5/3/2019
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