About Sara
In the last thirty years Sara has exhibited widely in Britain, Eastern Europe and the U.S. She studied Fine Art (Painting) in London and Manchester and later gained an MPhil in Art History at Glasgow University. In the late 1980s Sara was awarded a British Council/Polish Government Postgraduate Scholarship to paint in Gdansk, Poland for three years, followed by a few months in Budapest. Her art lecturing in the ‘80s and ‘90s took her as far ranging as Australia, India, Chile, Estonia, Russia, North America and the UK.
As a child, Sara lived in Central Africa and a number of places around the UK, notably Devon and Northumberland. The travel bug was well caught, and from college years onwards she spent time exploring, living and working in other continents, experiences of which shaped her both as a person and a working artist. Sara was based in Edinburgh for most of the 1990′s – a productive time for teaching and painting – and in 1998 moved to N. Carolina in the U.S. for four years where she had her first two children and continued to paint and teach. She then moved back to the UK with her family, living in North London followed by a final move to the South Hams in Devon in 2006. Since starting a family fourteen years ago, she has been running art workshops privately for adults and in primary and secondary schools. She is a registered workshop leader for DAISI, Barefoot, TR2 and SW Gifted & Talented Education.
Her latest project, while running the small holding and workshops from her home studio, is creating spaces for artists or writers to work and think.
Biography
1961
Born in Oxford. Moved much in childhood: London, Hampshire, Devon, Central Africa, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne.
1980-81
St Martin’s School of Art, London: Art Foundation Course
1981-84
Manchester Polytechnic Fine Art Degree (60% Painting; 40% Art History)
Extensive summer travels in Turkey and Africa
1985-86
Travel and free-lance art lecturing in Australia and India
1986-87
Bookseller in Art Department of Hatchards and A.Zwemmers in London
1987-88
Glasgow Univ.MPhil in Art History (“Role of Primitivism in Work of Emil Nolde 1905-15″)
1988-91
Gdansk Art Academy, Poland on British Council/Polish Government Postgraduate Scholarship – painting, teaching and numerous shows.
Visiting lecturer in St Petersburg, Russia and Tallinn, Estonia.
1992-98
Based in Edinburgh, Scotland – painting (numerous shows) and teaching EFL at private language school.
Visiting freelance lecturer: New York, Vancouver, Canada, Santiago, Chile; Caracas, Venezuela; various colleges in UK.
1993-96
Part-time lecturer in Painting and Art History at Wirral Metropolitan College
1998-01
N.Carolina, US (Chapel Hill and Durham) – painting (2 shows), teaching & starting a family.
2001-06
London, UK – married with 3 kids, PT teaching art workshops in local school & still painting.
2006-
Painting and teaching.
Artist’s Statement
Paintings on Paper
Over the years, Sara has evolved her own unique style of mixed media collages on paper, celebrating and exploring colour and light, texture and decorative abstract forms. At conception – often responding intuitively to music – her pieces are free and organic, embracing the accidental and playful arrangement of contrasting forms and surfaces. Increasingly, the creative process becomes slower and more considered, drawing on an intuitive sense of when to stop. A lifetime’s passion for beauty and primitive forces in art and nature, together with years of study and teaching, has significantly fed this intuition. Technically, the paintings evolve into a build up of translucent layers of paint and collaged paper. Traces of these layers or ‘lives’ can be seen beneath the surface to remind us of the complexities of experiences past and present; whatever is said or done has shaped and continues to shape us. The painting, therefore, is almost like a living organism with its history exposed. One might say the work is an unconscious attempt to evoke the rhythm and energy of the real world we inhabit.
Paintings on Glass, Wood and Hardboard
Sara’s starting point with these pieces was the finished paintings themselves under framed glass. Working on glass and frame as a whole as though a blank canvas, Sara applies her ‘layering’ technique with varnish, wood and glass paints. Once the surface has reached a point where it cannot be developed any further, she then deliberately and randomly smashes the glass. At this point the entire picture is disassembled, the shards separated gently and reassembled into a new composition. Occasionally, Sara leaves the glass in tact, building up layers of paint and varnish over the top of an old framed painting only to be scratched, scoured or rubbed away in sections to reveal the semi-hidden goings on beneath the glass.
Exhibitions
Solo Shows
| 2011 | Open Studio - South Hams Arts Forum | Devon | England |
| Harbour House, Kingsbridge - "View Points" | Devon | ||
| 2010 | Ariel Gallery, Totnes - "View Points" | Devon | |
| 2009 | Harbour House, Kingsbridge - "New Light New Discoveries" | Devon | |
| 2008 | Harbour House, Kingsbridge -"Looking Forward" | Devon | |
| The Flavel, Dartmouth - "Colour Sensations" | Devon | ||
| 2007 | Devon Art Works - Open Studio | Devon | |
| Harbour House, Kingsbridge - "Winter Glow" | Devon | ||
| 2006 | Nine days of Art- Open Studio | Devon | |
| 2003-4 | Clissold House - selected series | London | |
| 1999 | Kingfisher Gallery - "Panoramice Places" | Edinburgh | Scotland |
| Horace Williams House, Chapel Hill "Imaginary Landscapes" | North Carolina | USA | |
| 1998 | Carrboro Arts Center - "New Impressions" | North Carolina | |
| Kingfisher Gallery - "Sacred Spaces" | Edinburgh | Scotland | |
| 1997 | Firth Gallery - "New Work" | Edinburgh | |
| Chatton Gallery - "Scottish Landscapes & Seascapes" | North?berland | England | |
| 1996 | WASPS - "Paintings and Processes" | Edinburgh | Scotland |
| Leith Gallery - "Window Series" | Edinburgh | ||
| Queen's Hall, Hope Scott Gallery | Edinburgh | ||
| Royal Lyceum Theatre - "Games with Colour" | Edinburgh | ||
| 1995 | French Institute | Edinburgh | |
| WASPS Gallery - "Celebrations in Colour" | Edinburgh | ||
| 1992 | New Traverse Theatre - "Paintings from Eastern Europe" | Edinburgh | |
| Chapel Gallery, Saltram House -"From Poland to Hungary" | Plymouth | England | |
| 1991 | Galeria Arche | Gdansk | Poland |
| Galeria Yam | Zakopane | ||
| 1990 | Galeria Brama - "Paintings from the North" | Warsaw | |
| Galeria Arche - "Recent Work" | Gdansk | ||
Art Fairs
| 2011 | Solo stand at Brighton Art Fair | East Sussex | England |
| 2010 | Solo stand at Brighton Art Fair | East Sussex | |
| 2009 | Solo stand at Creative Dartmouth Weekend | Devon | |
| 2007 | Solo stand at Great Creat Arts Festival, Greenaway House | Devon | |
| 2006 | Represented by West Eleven Gallery, London at Art Fairs in | Edinburgh | Scotland |
| 2005 | Private Solo stand | Manchester | |
| 1997 | Represented by Thompson?s Gallery, London | Olympia | |
| Represented by Davies & Tooth, London | Glasgow |
Group Shows
| 2011 | Bunker Project, Salcombe | Devon | England |
| Totnes Observatory - Art and Architecture | Devon | ||
| Artspaces, Totnes | Devon | ||
| 2010 | Ariel Gallery, Totnes - "Art Teachers' Exhibition" | Devon | |
| 2009 | Red Earth Gallery - "Summer Exhibition"- Tiverton | Devon | |
| Artspaces, Totnes | Devon | ||
| Art Mill Gallery, Plymouth | Devon | ||
| Delamore Gallery - "All You Need is Love" - Cornwood | Devon | ||
| 2008 | Artspaces, Totnes | Devon | |
| Rowley Gallery, Kensington | London | ||
| Hope Cove Gallery, Hope Cove | Devon | ||
| 2007 | Rowley Gallery, Kensington | London | |
| Harbour House, Kingsbridge - SHAF Christmas Show | Devon | ||
| 2006 | Brownston Gallery, Modbury | Devon | |
| West Eleven Gallery, Notting Hill | London | ||
| Red Propeller Gallery, Kingsbridge | Devon | ||
| White Space Gallery, Greenwich | London | ||
| Artworks, South Brent | Devon | ||
| 2005 | Chatton Gallery | Northumberland | |
| 2004 | New Street Gallery, Barbican | Plymouth | |
| 2000 | Chatton Gallery | Northumberland | |
| 1999 | Art Source, Raleigh | North Carolina | USA |
| Royal Scottish Academy - SSA (Society of Scottish Artists) | Edinburgh | Scotland | |
| Carrboro Arts Center Faculty Show, Carrboro | North Carolina | USA | |
| Firth Gallery | Edinburgh | Scotland | |
| 1998 | Royal Scottish Academy - "9th SAAC (Scottish Artists and Artist Craftsman)" | Edinburgh | |
| Gallerie Michelle, Old Town Alexandria - "European Show" | Alexandria VA | USA | |
| Heifer Gallery - "Essence of Landscape" | London | England | |
| White Lane Gallery at the Theatre Royal | Plymouth | ||
| 1997 | Royal Scottish Academy - "SAAC Eighth Annual Exhibition" | Edinburgh | Scotland |
| Royal Scottish Academy - "SSA Annual Show" | Edinburgh | ||
| Cadogan Contemporary, London - "Images of the Sea" | London | England | |
| White Lane Gallery, Barbican, Plymouth - "Summer Exhibition" | Plymouth | ||
| Thompson's Gallery, Dover Street, London - "The Sea Show" | London | England | |
| Leith Gallery, Edinburgh - "All that Jazz" and "The Marine Show" | Edinburgh | Scotland | |
| Air Gallery, Dover Street, London | London | England | |
| Thompson's Gallery, London - ?Scottish Show" | London | ||
| 1996 | Royal Scottish Academy - "SAAC Annual Exhibition" | Edinburgh | Scotland |
| Firth Gallery - "Six Women Artists" (International Festival) | Edinburgh | Scotland | |
| Leith Gallery - "New Work by Bill Gillon and Sara Downham" | Edinburgh | ||
| Kingfisher Gallery - "Into Spring" | Edinburgh | ||
| 1992 | Galeria Dal - "Auction of Contemporary Painting in Poland" | Gdansk | Poland |
| 1991 | New Street Gallery, The Barbican -"The Last Great Picture Show" | Plymouth | England |
| Galeria Arche - "Dla Przyjaciol Galerii" | Gdansk | Poland | |
| 1990 | Galeria Arche - "Two British Artists Working in Gdansk" | Gdansk | |
| 1989 | Tour of Poland (BritishCouncil funded) -"Eight British Artists in Poland" | Warsaw, Krakow, Gdansk |
Academic Teaching
1997
Basil Paterson College, Edinburgh, UK
“A” Level History of Art
1996
Wirral Metropolitan College, UK
Basil Paterson College, Edinburgh, UK
Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen, UK
Visiting lectuer in Art History; painting tutorial to Fine Art degree students (yrs 1-3)
“A” Level History of Art
Student Tutorials
Press
2008
