Sarah Bell

View Sarah’s recent exhibition Catalogue here

“The next time you stand on the beach at night, watching the moon’s bright path across the water, and conscious of the moon-drawn tides, remember that the moon itself may have been born of a great tidal wave of earthly substance torn off into space.”

Rachel Carson. The Sea Around Us.

Sarah Bell lives and works from Balnarring on the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Victorian College of the Arts and a Postgraduate Diploma of Education from Monash University. Bell has held four solo shows and participated in numerous group exhibitions. Her most recent body of work was launched in 2021, entitled  ‘Life is but a Dream’. Bell was a finalist in the 2021 St. Kevin’s Art Award and 2022 Omnia Art Prize.

“My painting is framed by feelings of omnipotence in natural forces, weather changes and poetic landscapes. Its imagery is anchored in a reverence of the ever-changing atmospheric effects of water, sea and sky, the pull of the tides by the moon, and light, shape and forms affected by the weather and seasons. The work implies the nostalgia of a memory, a ‘reverie’ that elevates us above and into the landscape, sensing hope in the fragility of the luminous, physical and momentary. I explore nuance in blues and the contrasting pinpoints of lunar light reflecting on both water and clouds in the ‘nightscape’ without the noise of daylight. This is a theme that I have returned to often in my practice.”

“The work is largely an emotional and sensuous response to the natural environment around where I live and paint. Working from observation and memory through chalk drawings and miniature oil studies, I build the surface in gradual layers, sensing into a ‘slow painting’ process using a limited palette. Tapping into the kinaesthetic process of painting, I embody the landscape’s space and light as it unfolds in the painting. I hope to provoke the viewer to dream and imagine, or be transported via the senses, into gentle feeling states.”