Sarah Savage
Fine Art: Painting– Camberwell College of Arts, 2022
Sarah Savage's collection for Made in Arts London are paintings that have been gathered from different series and exemplify a broad representation of their painting practice. What the artist believes is that what seldom changes in this practice is that it usually evolves around the process of layering colours and the subject of landscape painting. The land and the sense of belonging to the land is important in the work.
Sarah's work encompasses the various narratives and subjects of landscape painting and focuses primarily on the experiences of growing up in Northern Ireland. The paintings evolve from drawings and photographs and expound on a desire to belong to a place that could be called home. This sense of belonging in terms of how the North of Ireland has been a place of conflicts and divided communities is sometimes denoted through several different perspectives that is analogous to how the Northern Ireland environment has realms of differing viewpoints. The paintings envelop these journeys across the land and evolve from the process of layered colours that merge in and out of abstract and representational imagery.
These landscapes share both a biographical and historical memory. Some paintings such as 'The Massereene Wolfhound' are created from childhood memories and other works such as 'The Polar Bear Enclosure' represent the constrictions and freedoms that can be experienced in Northern Ireland due to these differing viewpoints. Larger paintings such as the Inner Suburban Village series depicts social housing units and one in this collection includes a painting of Brandon Estate.
These paintings are about the relationship of the natural landscape and confined living spaces and has its roots in my experience of growing up in a social housing estate with four other siblings. These paintings are an example of my most recent work that has been developed over a few different series.
Awards and residencies:
Big Walls and Windows Project, 2021
Young Artist of the Year, 2016
Instagram: @miss_savage_sarah
"The paintings are embedded in memories. I hope my audience will feel the depth of these associations and even become positive synonyms that transfer to their own individual memories. "
