Sarah E Shaw

(Ses)

Bio

Sarah E Shaw (b.1994) is a self taught artist from South East London. She uses various media including watercolour, pastels and photography to convey distinctive emotional narratives associated with her chosen landscapes. Before embarking on creating 2D works, Sarah worked for many years as a Makeup Artist in fashion, television, film and retail. Using this experience in her current work, Sarah finds symbolic links with the natural environment that resonate with the relentless pursuit of beauty and perfection. In 2021, she undertook her own research on using painting to alleviate symptoms of SSRI withdrawal which lead to a commission for Nightingale Mental Health Hospital in 2024. Using her recent studies in Art History and creative writing at the Open University, Sarah continues to weave research and language into her visual story telling. 

(not to be confused with the Brighton-based artist or Maine-based illustrator of the same name: Sarah Shaw & Sarah E Shaw ☺)

Artist Statement

I am a self-taught artist working with nature and landscapes, but the most fascinating spaces to me are the ones that are hardest to occupy. It is only through using my imagination that a distant memory, a feeling or a faraway uninhabitable place can become gradually accessible.  This becomes the motive for picking up my tools. When exploring these spaces, I derive a strange sort of pleasurable regret that I will never be able to fully experience or embody them.
Though informed by scientific and historical research, all of my work is created through intuitive and unplanned actions.

When I make art, I am escaping and speculating, building an imagined scene which stems from a curiosity of the natural world. It sometimes backed by scientific research to make a point of comparison between the nature we understand on Earth, and what we will never experience on another planet. I like the unpredictability of paint because it can bring me closer to my destination and unlocking its narrative. Achieving an imitation of nature is not as important as translating a personal experience. This results in layers of disordered brushwork and structuring contours which symbolise the event in my mind. This is particularly true of my exploration of the Venus, which has become more than just a planet that I will never step foot on. For something that is so disparate from Earth, it feels astonishingly familiar. To me, the reflective clouds that conceal its inhospitable and chaotic surface act like a veil shielding pain and ugliness.

I am aware of my previous experience as a makeup artist and my compulsion to make things appear beautiful and balanced. My processes help me to convey beauty as one part of a whole concept.

Journals

In my journals for each series of paintings, I reflect on my artistic practice, weaving together relevant historical and scientific research to deepen understanding of the creative process.

Nightingale Hospital Commission

Visualising Venus

Mindscapes - Art & Therapy

Photo Journal