SES

artist, UK

Sarah Emily Shaw (Ses) is an artist working across various disciplines including photography, watercolour and oil paint, currently residing in Kent, UK. She began creating in 2016 as a way to process feelings of low mood, and has since realised art’s potential as a therapeutic practice, and as a vessel of emotional communication. Ses’ early creations took the form of graphic portraits, and her work has become increasingly abstracted over time. Her work now imagines a completely new and fresh space where emotion can be shared without judgement or fear, and brings psychological thinking into a physical space for criticism and debate. Ses also uses writing to allow her to accurately explain and process the turbulence of living with depression and anxiety, and how to use art as a guide through therapy.

Sarah’s previous experience working in the cosmetics industry has allowed her to recognise how some personal insecurities are often mutually shared. Her artistic exploration aims to highlight these difficulties in order to create a feeling of safety and reassurance among those who connect with it.

Ses’ ongoing project, mindscapes, is an exploration of her artistic identity and investigates how mental health is affected by a reaction to the external environment. Created intuitively and impulsively, the mindscapes blend elements of nature with anatomical forms and colourful abstracted buildings into something which is fluid and free-flowing. Using colours that are vibrant and emotive, the marks and lines that construct each mindscape are improvised; driven mostly by emotions and memories, and a desire to find balance.