Art on a Postcard International Women’s Day Auction - Curated by CURA Art

About 

Sarah Karen is a Visual Artist and Arts Educator, with a practice in the design, craft, and research of textiles. Her practice is studio based, and focuses on hands on making - working across weaving, sewing, and print. Inspired by her family's history within the textile industry of the West Midlands (weaving & sewing) Sarah’s practice seeks to reclaim these crafts, to demonstrate the capabilities of textiles within contemporary and critical art spheres. Sarahs continuation of her families legacy and use of her intuitive knowledge of these hand-crafts is a powerful act of reclamation in an increasingly digital time.  

Her work is autobiographical, and interested in the potential textiles have in storing memory, history and narrative. Creating textile works of varying sizes, that are either hand-woven, or hand-quilted, and utilising second-hand fabrics and yarns, Sarah works with the histories already embedded in these materials, and intertwines them with personal thoughts and feelings to build and explore narratives through colour, shape, stitch, and print, building an archive of memories through a tactile sensibility. The meditative nature of Sarah’s practice also links with the processes of healing and navigating her own mental health. The materiality of quilts, and their history in the domestic setting adds a layer of nostalgia and familiarity which surrounds ideas of comfort and nesting.   

Education 

2013 – 2016 
BA Hons Illustration, Camberwell College of Arts, London. 

2018 
Artist Associate, Open School East, Margate.   

Select Exhibitions/Awards 

Recent exhibitions include ‘Summer Camp’, Eastside Projects, Birmingham, ‘SUMMER’ TODAY, Preston, and ‘Bladderwrack’ Crownpoint Studios, Glasgow. Previous exhibitions include ‘Gut Feelings’ Open School East, Margate, ‘Contemporary Exorcism’ as part of Whitstable Biennale, ‘Strong Currents’ Botany Bay, Kent and ‘Walking Distance’ Guest Projects, London. Sarah has recently been selected to create a site-specific work for ‘A Siren’s Call’ which will be exhibited throughout October as part of Art in Romney Marsh 2023. She is also a successful recipient of the ‘Developing Your Creative Practice’ grant awarded by the Arts Council England in 2021. 

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