Sarah Lees
b.1962
Born in Coventry, Sarah settled in Carmarthenshire where she first studied Wildlife Illustration. She worked freelance for a number of years before getting a BA Hons in Fine Art followed by an MA. She is currently Programme Director for Access to Art and Design at Carmarthen School of Art.
Her latest body of work focuses on the countryside, particularly in relation to the visual language of trees and hedgerows and how they fit into the landscape. She likes to pay close attention to surface detail, overpainting with delicate oil glazes to achieve depth. She also works back using imprints and marks to give expression and paying close attention to the finished surface of the paintings, which often have a burnished effect. These surfaces also show signs of manipulation with details scratched into the panel.
Working en plein air is an essential element of her process, supporting and augmenting work produced in the studio. Recent work is occupied with the artificiality and destruction of the landscape, particularly the visual language of fields, trees and hedgerows and how they are accommodated. She is drawn to this natural form and vitality, and her work reflects similar conflict and resolution. She is also drawn to still life and abstraction with a modernist feel, which is a legacy of her upbringing in post-war Coventry.
