..
"Trained
at Bristol and Manchester, Sarah completed her post-graduate
studies at the Slade School of Art, London. Ostensibly realistic,
her work goes beyond this to explore the nature of reality, and
of time and space. The artworks are refined, emphasizing her
knowledge and meticulousness in the chosen medium. But her art
is not just representational: it also has a rare imaginative
flair. The objects are changed into something which is beyond
the original and which creates a kind of parallel ideal artistic
reality. If this sounds a little like surrealism, then maybe
that is not so far from the truth, but the work is subtler than
that." - the words of a collector.
.
Having
previously exhibited in many exhibitions in both the United Kingdom
and France, Gold Fish Galleries in Sarasota, Florida then Lincoln
Centre in New York, I finished a commission from Cunard Line
in 2003, through the art consultants "Onderneming &
Kunst" to do six oil paintings for the penthouses on board
the new "Queen Mary 2", launched in January, 2004.
However, during working on this commission I had been become
increasingly unwell and by the time it was finished I found myself
unable to use my right arm. Signing the six works took a week
in total and I was unable to finish varnishing them without enlisting
the help of David, my husband. The diagnosis was not good, very
aggressive chronic progressive multiple sclerosis. I really knew
I had MS since my early twenties but for much of that time it
had been very benign. The occassional relapse soon cleared up,
leaving no apparent deficits, so I chose to ignore it. Several
months after this latest diagnosis, though, with the help of
a still experimental though thoroughly researched medical treatment
which you can read about here I began tentatively painting in watercolours.
Eventually I managed to do something which I wasn't embarrassed
about and ended up putting in the bin.
.
However, I would not have been happy with spending the rest of
my life as a watercolourist and at the start of 2006, I felt
I had improved enough to start painting canvases again at the
start of 2006, using top quality acrylic paints rather than oil
paints, and this involved learning a whole new way of working.
Always feeling cramped by small spaces, I not only started painting
canvases again but painted larger canvases, free of the constraints
I felt of four sides closing in on me.
By March 2008, I decided that I just had to start using oil paints
again, so I searched for all my old tubes, not used since finishing
the Queen Mary 2 commission in early 2003. I bought a few new
tubes, some new linseed oil and a much more pleasantly smelling
citrus oil cleaner. I do still mix some spirits of turpentine
with the linseed oil for a medium, but I do use my air filter
most of the time and I will never varnish without opening at
least two windows. Oil painting is a delight, but I must admit
I had forgotten quite how long it takes to get anything ready
to photograph and put online, since they can look terribly streaky
if not varnished at least with retouching varnish.
These last few years have been very strange: forced in 2003 to
admit that I really was very ill and would never be able to paint
again, a few weeks later I was on the road back to recovery.
I have not had any adverse MS event since starting treatment
and have done nothing but improve. I might still sometimes limp
a little and not be able to walk or cycle as far as ten years
ago, which was a very long way, but my mind is brighter and clearer
than it has been for years and I have regained full use and more
of my painting arm. For this I am truly thankful to both the
people at Vanderbilt University Medical Centre and to my husband,
David Wheldon, a consultant medical microbiologist who kept with
me because he knew there was a way out.
